THE 

WILLOW    WEAVER 

AND    SEVEN    OTHER    TALES 


MICHAEL    WOOD 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


o 


\ 


THE    WILLOW    WEAVER 

AND  SEVEN  OTHER  TALES 


A    LIST   OF   THE   STORIES   OF 
MICHAEL  WOOD 

THE  HOUSE  OF  PEACE 
THE  DOUBLE  ROAD  (shortly) 

Published  by  LONGMANS,  GREEN  &  Co. 

THE  SAINT  AND  THE  OUTLAW 

1.  THE  SAINT  AND  THE  OUTLAW 

2.  THE  PRINCE  AND  THE  WATER  GATES 

3.  Lox 

4.  THE  DREAM  GARDEN 

5.  THE  WAY  OF  THE  HERB  GATHERER 

6.  THE  LAND  OF  MARVELLOUS  NIGHT 

7.  THE  FOOL  AND  THE  FOLK  OF  PEACE 

8.  THE  SINNER'S  REQUIEM 
g.  THE  PREACHER 

10.  THE  TELLER  OF  DROLLS 

11.  THE  TUMULTUOUS  SHADOWS 

12.  THE  GUARDIAN  OF  THE  CITY 

13.  THE  HOUSE  OF  HATE 

THE  KING  PREDESTINATE 
THE  KING  PREDESTINATE 
THE  ALCHEMIST 
THE  WORSHIPPER 
THE  BUILDER 

Published  by  THE  THEOSOPHICAL  PUBLISHING 
SOCIETY. 

THE  RIDDLE  Published  by  REBMAN  LTD. 

THE  FIRE  OF  THE  ROSE 
THE  GARMENT  OF  GOD 
THE  SECRET  OF  THE  CHILD 

Published  by  THE  ST.  MAHRL  WORKSHOP. 


THE 

WILLOW   WEAVER 

AND  SEVEN  OTHER  TALES 

BY 

MICHAEL    WOOD 


NEW   YORK 
E.    P.    DUTTON    &   CO. 

MCMXVI 


PREFACE 

"  Dost  thou  feel  the  soil  of  thy  soul  stirred  by  tender 
thoughts?  Disturb  it  not  with  speech  but  let  it  work 
in  quietness  and  secrecy." 

THESE  few  stories  of  Michael  Wood  are  here  reprinted 
with  the  consent  but  not  at  the  suggestion  of  the 
author.  To  those  who  understand,  the  appeal  is 
diverse  but  unmistakable ;  the  delicate  description  of 
our  Mother  Earth,  the  sense  of  the  invisible,  the 
value  of  the  things  that  count,  the  scorn  of  a  good 
deal  that  is  conventional,  ordinary,  and  admitted, 
are  here  writ  plain  for  those,  who,  in  the  French 
phrase,  have  the  seeing  ear  and  the  hearing  eye. 
At  a  time  when  much  that  is  ingrained  in  us  is 
thrown  into  a  crucible  of  fire,  and  elemental  doubts 
and  certainties  have  taken  its  place,  such  attempts 
to  pierce  through  veils  may  be  welcomed,  and  with 
a  little  book  a  little  appeal  is  made. 

If  justification  were  further  needed  it  is  twofold- 
First,  the  stories  do  not  by  any  means  stand  alone; 
and  half  a  dozen  names  might  be  quoted  of  writers 
who,  to-day,  in  the  short  story,  persistently  turn 


2040731 


Preface 

aside  to  listen  to  the  obstinate  questionings  which 
will  not,  for  all  our  din,  be  stilled;  but  secondly,  the 
Editor,  to  whom  the  privilege  of  collecting  these 
stories  has  been  entrusted,  has  had  for  some  time 
the  rare  experience  of  trying  them  with  the  living 
voice  on  audiences  large  and  small.  The  response 
has  never  in  any  case  been  doubtful,  though  it 
might  be  difficult  or  impertinent  to  analyse  such  a 
lifting  of  conventional  veils.  Partly  in  the  hope  of 
passing  on  an  experience  like  this,  and  partly  with 
the  wish  that  Michael  Wood's  other  published  work 
might  be  more  widely  known,  the  Editor  commends 
to  other  story-tellers  these  diamonds  from  a  mystic 
mine. 

Thanks  are  given  to  the  Manager  of  the  Theo- 
sophical  Review  for  permission  to  reprint  the  stories 
in  this  volume. 

September  1915. 


CONTENTS 

PARE 

THE  WILLOW  WEAVER        .        .  .        .        i 

THE  BENDING  OF  THE  TWIG       .  .  .        .      25 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN  .  .        .      49 

THE    EXCELLENT    VERSATILITY    OF  THE  MINOR 

PoET           •        •        .  .  .        .      64 

"THE  TREE  OF  BEAUTY"  .        .  .  .        .      85 

FORTY-EIGHT  HOURS I02 

THE  BREATH  UPON  THE  SLAIN    .  .  .        .121 

THE  GLAMOUR-LAND  .        .        .  .  .        .129 


vii 


THE   WILLOW    WEAVER 

"  I  SHALL  give  you  twenty-four  hours  to  vanish 
in,  Campion,"  said  the  elder  and  superior  to  the 
younger  and  inferior.  "  I  can't  do  more  for  you 
than  that.  Let  me  tell  you  very  few  men  in  my 
position  would  do  as  much." 

He  held  his  finger  up  impressively. 

"  It  is  for  the  sake  of  your  father  that  I  do  this. 
You  ought  to  be  grateful.  Twenty-four  hours  in 
which  to  vanish!  Of  course  you  must  carefully 
choose  the  method  of  vanishing.  Under  the 
circumstances  I  know  the  way  I  should  take 
were  I  in  your  shoes,  but  I  hesitate  to  advise 
you  to  take  it." 

The  last  sentence  was  in  the  man's  mind,  not 
on  his  tongue ;  it  produced  the  most  effect  because 
the  whole  gist  of  his  speech  was  contained  in  it, 
and  it  was  the  point  about  which  he  was  (half 
unconsciously)  anxious.  A  respectable  citizen  can 
hardly  suggest  to  a  lad  fifteen  years  his  junior 
that  he  shall  take  his  own  life;  it  would  be 
difficult,  though  rather  easier,  to  say  to  a  man  of 


The  Willow  Weaver 

equal  age,  "  Under  your  circumstances  I  should 
blow  my  brains  out  " — and  Campion  was  so 
young.  It  might  become  known,  too,  that  such 
advice  had  been  given;  then  people  would 
question  the  adviser's  motives,  and  what  would 
become  of  that  valuable  business  asset  his  re- 
spectability; he  had  foolishly  risked  it  a  little 
already,  but  that  was  not  known  to  people  whose 
opinion  mattered.  It  would  take  wing  with  the 
soul  of  the  young  man,  and  his  income  might  even 
suffer  in  consequence.  Besides  he  would  not  like 
to  remember  he  had  advised  suicide  as  a  course 
of  action;  of  course  it  did  not  matter  if  he  only 
thought  how  conveniently  it  might  smooth  the 
state  of  affairs. 

There  were  reasons  why  he  did  not  want  this 
young  man,  the  only  child  of  a  very  poor  and 
respectable  widow,  to  stand  in  the  dock  and  have 
all  the  circumstances  which  led  to  his  standing 
there  sifted  publicly  by  a  painstaking  gentleman 
intent  on  obtaining  for  his  client  if  not  acquittal 
at  any  rate  as  light  a  sentence  as  possible.  The 
young  sinner's  immediate  superior  was  not  his 
own  master;  his  employer  was  uncompromising 
and  old  fashioned  in  his  views.  He  was  a  man 
who  practised  no  form  of  dishonesty  or  immorality 


The  Willow  Weaver 

that  might  not  be  decently  practised  by  people 
of  honest  and  moral  repute.  He  would  be  hard 
on  Ralph  Campion  on  general  business  principles, 
but  he  would  be  much  harder  on  one  whose  years 
and  standing  should  be  a  guarantee  for  his  good 
behaviour  and  influence  over  others  if  the  conduct 
of  such  an  one  did  not  stand  the  test  of  public 
scrutiny.  And  the  personal  element  would  come 
in,  for  this  man  was  not  only  the  employer  of 
Ralph  Campion's  superior  but  also  his  father-in- 
law,  and  there  was  his  wife's  attitude  to  be  re- 
membered besides  that  of  her  father;  all  this 
might  affect  his  reputation,  his  business  prospects, 
and  his  domestic  life  very  seriously.  He  felt 
kindly  to  Ralph  Campion.  There  was  the  whole 
point.  The  affair  began  with  the  kindly  impulse 
of  a  rather  coarse  man  of  the  world  who  had 
"  married  well "  from  his  point  of  view  and 
prospered  socially  and  financially  by  so  doing; 
prosperous  himself,  he  saw  no  prosperity  of  any 
type  other  than  that  which  he  pursued  and  had 
pursued  since  he  was  Campion's  age.  Therefore 
he  was  kindly  according  to  his  own  lights.  His 
moral  code  had  nothing  to  do  with  his  inner  con- 
victions ;  he  had  no  convictions  as  to  the  nature 
of  righteousness.  His  morality  was  to  "  get  on," 
3 


The  Willow  Weaver 

and  it  was  a  tremendous  bulwark  against  obvious 
criminality.  His  twelve-year-old  son  was  "  back- 
ward and  delicate,"  to  quote  the  scholastic  ad- 
vertisements; he  sent  him  to  Ralph  Campion's 
father  for  tuition  because  the  little  vicarage  stood 
in  a  bracing  air.  He  liked  and  vaguely  honoured 
his  boy's  tutor — irrationally  indeed,  for  he  had 
certainly  not  "  got  on  "  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  financier.  When  the  man  died  he  obtained 
for  his  son,  young  Campion,  that  position  of  trust 
which  he  had  betrayed.  The  boy  was  then  nine- 
teen; it  was  three  years  ago.  The  patron  did 
more;  still  moved  by  kindliness  he  took  a  great 
deal  of  notice  of  his  young  subordinate.  He  liked 
the  lad;  he  confided  in  him  to  some  extent,  in- 
creasingly so  when  he  found  him  to  be  rather 
silent;  he  liked  his  refinement,  at  which  he 
laughed — liking  it  despite  his  laughter,  as  coarse 
people  sometimes  do  like  a  quality  they  do  not 
possess.  He  gave  him  worldly  precepts  whereby 
he  might  in  the  future  prosper  in  business.  He 
chaffed  him  gaily  concerning  the  young  ladies 
of  the  neighbourhood,  pointing  out  matrimonial 
prizes  which  he  might  have  some  chance  of  win- 
ning. He  showed  him  a  side  of  life  he  would 
probably  have  passed  by  unheeded;  in  so  doing 


The  Willow  Weaver 

(here  was  the  crux)  he  showed  him  a  side  of  his 
own  life  that  was  not  generally  known.  His 
prote'ge'  became  in  some  respects  his  tool,  in  some 
his  victim.  He  found  out  that  betrayal  of  trust 
before  others  did  so  because  he  knew  which  man 
to  suspect,  because  he  knew  the  circumstances 
that  might  cause  him  to  be  specially  tempted. 
The  story  was  rather  vulgar — sordid — common. 
From  coarse  kindliness  to  selfishness,  from  selfish- 
ness by  way  of  fear  to  that  which  was  in  thought 
— murder.  But  yet  he  liked  the  boy,  and  he  was 
sorry  for  him. 

"  You  mustn't  suppose  I  think  you  a  black- 
guard, Ralph,"  he  said.  "  In  my  private  capacity, 
not  as  your  business  head,  you  know,  we're  as 
good  friends  as  ever,  my  boy.  I  know  how  things 
go,  bless  your  life!  I  know  how  one  gets  let  in 
for  what  one  never  meant  to  do  at  the  start. 
That's  one  pull  a  man  has  who  isn't  always  all 
that  I  suppose  he  ought  to  be.  He  knows  from 
his  own  experience  that  whatever  he  may  do  he 
has  really  heaps  of  good  points;  and  he  applies 
that  reasoning  to  other  people  when  they  don't  go 
quite  straight,  you  know.  But  if  you're  here  when 
Mr.  Warrener  comes  back  I  shall  have  you  arrested. 
I  must.  I  don't  know  this  now,  you  understand." 
5 


The  Willow  Weaver 

The  young  man  drew  lines  in  the  ashes  of  the 
hearth  with  a  small  brass  poker.  He  did  not  look 
in  the  least  the  sort  of  person  from  whom  one 
would  expect  a  criminal  to  be  made ;  he  had  what 
some  people  would  call  a  "  nice  face  " — comely  to 
look  upon,  refined,  rather  sensitive,  grave ;  by  no 
means  weak  nor  yet  unintellectual.  He  looked 
as  though  he  could  think;  he  looked  as  though 
he  could  love;  and  he  looked  as  though  he  could 
be  ashamed  of  himself  and  admit  the  fact  both 
to  himself  and  to  other  people.  These  are  good 
signs.  He  was  as  white  as  a  sheet,  and  for  the 
moment  he  seemed  to  be  stunned  rather  than 
repentant. 

"If,"  he  said  slowly,  speaking  quietly  and  un- 
emotionally, "if  I  do  not  vanish,  but  stay  here 
and  pay  the  penalty — I've  behaved  very  badly, 
and  I'm  willing  to  pay  it — will  you  let  bygones  be 
bygones — afterwards  ? ' ' 

"  Bless  my  soul,  Ralph  Campion,  you  must  be 
a  raving  ass !  It  is  the  '  penalty  '  as  you  call  it, 
that  counts.  It  is  not  the  thing  in  itself  so  much. 
I  don't  for  a  moment  suppose  you  to  be  much 
worse  than  most  other  young  fellows.  I  should 
think  you're  better  than  most." 

"  I  hoped  when  you'd  paid  a  debt  you  were 
6 


The  Willow  Weaver 

given  a  receipt,  and  there  was  an  end  of  the 
matter." 

"My  good  fellow!  You're  old  enough  and 
you've  seen  enough  to  know  that  things  aren't 
done  that  way  in  this  world.  I  say  I  don't  think 
you  in  the  least  a  worse,  or  perhaps  a  more  dis- 
honest man  than  I  am  myself;  not  the  least! 
But — excuse  my  bluntness — it's  the  prison  that 
sticks,  it's  not  the  sin." 

The  young  man  gave  a  little  start  and  shiver; 
the  other's  bluntness  had  suddenly  brought  the 
whole  position,  and  its  future  developments,  home 
to  him.  It  was  the  difference  between  theoretic 
and  practical  knowledge;  his  white  face  grew 
green-white,  his  hands  became  limp,  and  he  laid 
the  poker  down.  These  two  people  sat  in  the 
superior's  country  house  on  the  outskirts  of  a  big 
smoky  town.  Young  Campion  was  asked  there 
as  a  guest  in  order  that  his  host  might  tell  him 
he  knew  him  to  be  a  criminal.  The  boy — for  he 
was  little  more  than  a  boy — went  there  suffering 
qualms  of  conscience  bred  of  gratitude.  He  knew 
his  host  had  not  quite  the  influence  on  his  life 
that — let  us  say — Campion's  father  would  have 
wished  to  have,  but  he  did  not  think  of  excusing 
his  own  behaviour  on  that  account.  He  knew  he 
7 


The  Willow  Weaver 

had  been,  and  was,  doing  wrong;  it  worried  him, 
and  he  was  ashamed  of  accepting  the  kindness 
which  led  his  superior  to  ask  him  to  stay  with  him 
from  Saturday  till  Sunday  evening.  "  My  wife's 
away,  staying  with  her  mother,"  he  said  to  Ralph 
Campion.  "  I'm  alone.  You're  looking  out  of 
sorts.  You'd  better  come  down  to  me  this  after- 
noon; besides,  I've  something  to  say  to  you 
quietly." 

So  on  Sunday  afternoon  when  Campion  was 
feeling  particularly  ashamed  of  himself  and  very 
unhappy  and  perplexed,  he  said,  quietly,  what 
he  had  to  say,  and  thereby  gave  his  unsuspecting 
guest  a  nervous  shock  which  some  people  may 
think  to  be  accountable  for  what  followed.  That 
is  a  matter  of  opinion,  and  "  thought  is  free."  As 
aforesaid,  there  were  reasons,  serious  reasons 
more  important  than  the  life,  death,  happiness, 
or  pain  of  young  Ralph  Campion,  why  his  ill- 
doing  should  not  be  found  out  till  he  was  dead 
and  incapable  of  speech. 

It  was  a  damp  November  day;  the  land  was 
vivid  brown  and  green — green  fields,  wet  brown 
earth,  brown  stubble,  brown  rushes  by  a  little 
bluish-brown  canal,  brown-green  boughs  with 
bright  brown  lea  vesclinging  to  them  here  and  there. 


The  Willow  Weaver 

There  had  been  much  rain,  the  earth  was  sodden 
and  reeking;  there  were  black,  purplish-grey 
clouds,  shot  with  dull  green  in  the  East,  and  a 
pale  silver-yellow  sky  in  the  West.  It  was  early 
afternoon;  the  light  was  clear  save  where  the 
smoke  wreaths  of  the  town  brooded  in  the 
distance;  there  was  no  sunshine. 

Ralph  Campion  looked  at  the  brown-green 
earth;  he  did  not  see  it.  For  the  last  few  minutes 
his  mind  swung  between  two  pictures;  one  of  a 
little  wind-swept  churchyard  where  was  the  grave 
of  an  upright  man  whose  name  he  bore ;  the  other 
of  a  wee  grey  stone  house  very  bleak  and  trim, 
standing  on  a  shelterless  hillside;  therein  lived 
his  thin  little,  meek  little  old  mother,  dressed  in  a 
scanty  black  gown  and  a  widow's  cap,  reading 
her  Bible  at  night  and  praying  to  God  for  her 
only  son;  she  did  not  pray  for  her  husband 
because  he  was  dead,  and  she  disliked  Popery. 
At  last  Ralph  Campion's  eyes  filled  with  tears, 
and  he  felt  it  was  time  to  go.  Therefore  he  rose. 

"  Very  well,"  he  said,  "  I  don't  feel  very 
grateful;  but  I  should  be  so  if  you  could  hush 
it  up  when  I  have  vanished,  so  that  my — mother 
mightn't  know." 

"  I  shall  hush  it  up  if  I  can."  And  no  man 
9 


The  Willow  Weaver 

knew  better  than  he  how  sincerely  he  spoke  the 
truth,  and  how  earnestly  he  regretted  it  would 
be  impossible  to  do  so.  There  was  no  need  to  tell 
Ralph  it  was  impossible.  "  Even  if  the  young 
idiot  were  dead  it  wouldn't  be  safe  not  to  come 
out,"  he  thought.  "  But  it  would  be  much  safer. 
If  Carry  and  her  father  got  to  know  what  had 
led  up  to  his  playing  the  fool  like  this,  and  how 
far  I'm  responsible  (though,  of  course,  I'm  not 
really  responsible)  there'd  be  the  devil  to  pay." 

Carry  was  his  wife,  who  was  staying  with  her 
mother.  Aloud  he  said: 

"  I've  ordered  the  dog-cart  for  you.  The  thing 
to  do  will  be  to  say  good-bye  cordially,  you  see. 
Then  I  shan't  know  anything  till  this  time  to- 
morrow, when  Mr.  Warrener  comes  back." 

"  If  you  don't  mind  shaking  hands,"  said  Ralph 
Campion,  listlessly,  "  of  course  I  don't." 

So  they  shook  hands,  and  the  host  shouted 
cheerful  and  jocular  good-speed  after  the  part- 
ing guest.  Campion  left  the  cart  half  way  to  the 
station ;  he  told  the  groom  to  drive  on  and  leave 
his  portmanteau  in  the  cloak-room  to  be  called 
for.  He  struck  straight  across  the  sodden  fields, 
and  walked  townwards.  It  was  ten  miles  to  the 
town;  his  boots  were  clogged  with  dank  clay 


The  Willow  Weaver 

when  he  reached  the  first  houses  on  the  outskirts. 
They  were  hideous  little  brick  boxes  in  an  un- 
made road  leading  nowhere. 

Beyond  them  lay  a  patch  of  flat,  foul,  be- 
trampled,  houseless,  roadless,  grassless  ground. 
It  was  an  expanse  of  thick  sticky  mud;  on  it 
stood  pools  of  dirty  water,  held  by  the  clay  from 
sinking  into  the  earth ;  old  bricks  (why  are  ancient 
broken  bricks  so  peculiarly  sordid  and  depressing 
in  appearance?)  and  bent  rusty  tin  cans.  Over 
the  whole  brooded  a  raw,  poisonous,  yellow-black 
fog.  Across  the  waste  ground  crawled  the  canal 
that  started  in  the  clean  green-brown  country; 
here  it  ran  between  a  clammy  grassless  towing 
path  and  a  brick  wall.  "  Ran  "  is  too  jocund  a 
word  to  describe  its  action.  It  crept  stickily  along, 
a  slimy  glaze  coating  its  surface,  whereon  floated 
the  hairless  swollen  body  of  a  drowned  rat. 

Ralph  Campion  stood  at  the  side  of  the  black 
canal,  and  looked  at  the  sheer  drop  of  the  brick 
work.  This  might  be  a  place  in  which  to  vanish. 
Very  few  of  the  words  he  heard  that  afternoon 
lingered  with  him ;  but  the  thought  fashioned  by 
the  reputable  citizen  who  wished  that  he  was 
dead,  pursued  him  during  the  ten  mile  walk,  and 
was  with  him  still.  It  was  the  unspoken  words 


The  Willow  Weaver 

which  Campion  remembered ;  he  knew  as  well  as 
the  other  the  way  in  which  he  must  disappear. 
Oddly  enough,  it  never  struck  him  he  might  have 
demanded  protection  as  a  price  for  silence;  he 
did  not  realise  that  family  and  business  com- 
plications might  be  the  result  of  evidence  elicited 
by  cross-examination;  simplicity  and  generosity 
clave  to  him  still ;  perhaps  this  was  why  the  powers 
were  sorry  for  him  and  dealt  with  him  mercifully. 
The  place  was  lonely;  it  was  growing  dusk,  there 
were  no  barges  about;  the  street  was  but  just 
finished,  the  houses  were  unlet.  Only — he  could 
swim.  He  did  not  want  to  live  to  face  public 
shame,  and  loneliness,  and  bitter  remorse;  this 
was  a  man  who  wanted  to  live  an  honourable  life, 
and  leave,  an  honourable  name.  But  though  he 
wished  to  die  his  body  would  struggle  for  life, 
and  this  conviction  struck  him  with  fear  lest  he 
was  not  this  body  which  willed  otherwise  than 
he ;  if  so,  perhaps  he  could  not  kill  himself.  Well ! 
if  there  was  hell  on  the  other  side,  at  any  rate 
there  was  not  prison,  and  his  friends  staring  at 
and  cutting  him.  There  could  not  be  superior 
persons  amongst  lost  souls.  The  thought  was 
momentarily  cheering. 

His  body  would  struggle  to  live ;  perhaps  poison 

12 


The  Willow  Weaver 

would  be  the  better  way;  but  drowning  might 
mean  accident  or  murder,  whereas  if  he  bought 

poison .   He  took  a  silk  scarf  from  his  pocket 

and  tried  to  tie  his  wrists,  but  his  hands  were 
cold  and  he  was  clumsy.  He  flung  his  watch, 
chain,  and  purse  into  the  water — when  his  body 
was  found  their  absence  would  suggest  robbery 
and  murder;  he  kept  a  little  silver  loose  in  his 
pocket  lest  poison  should  after  all  prove  to  be 
the  better  way. 

Suddenly  he  noticed  what,  till  now,  he  had  not 
seen.  There  was  a  tumble-down  hut  within  a  few 
paces  of  where  he  stood;  coming  towards  it  was 
a  woman  with  a  huge  bundle  on  her  bowed 
shoulders.  As  she  drew  near  he  saw  she  carried 
willow  withies;  she  was  a  tall  old  woman,  very 
poorly  clad;  her  feet  were  naked,  and  in  spite 
of  her  burden  she  walked  with  a  stately  step,  as 
lightly  as  a  girl. 

This  young  man  was  poor,  and  a  criminal  to 
boot,  but  he  was  also  a  gentleman;  when  he  saw 
this  woman,  he,  though  he  was  thinking  of  his 
sins,  his  despair,  and  his  coming  death,  showed 
to  her,  half  mechanically,  what  all  should  show 
at  all  times,  especially  to  a  woman  very  old  and 
poor,  namely,  courtesy  and  helpfulness. 
13 


The  Willow  Weaver 

"  Let  me  carry  those  to  the  hut/'  he  said. 
"  They  are  surely  much  too  heavy  for  you." 

"  Take  them,"  she  said  briefly.  He  took  them; 
they  were  indeed  very  heavy.  He  threw  them  on 
the  ground  by  her  door. 

"  You  had  better  enter  my  hut,"  she  said 
gravely. 

Now  there  was  no  reason  why  Ralph  Campion 
should  enter  her  hut;  in  fact  there  was  every 
reason  why  he  should  not  do  so.  Nevertheless, 
he  went  in.  It  was  not  very  dark  there;  by  no 
means  so  dark  as  the  waning  light  warranted  it 
should  be.  There  were  willow  withies  on  the  floor; 
the  woman  sat  on  the  ground,  leaned  against  the 
door-post,  and  began  to  weave  them. 

"  Do  you  weave  baskets  ? "  said  Ralph  Campion. 

"  I  do,"  she  answered.  "  By  some  I  am  called 
the  Willow-weaver." 

"  You  weave  fast." 

"  Naturally.     I  have  had  much  practice." 

She  twisted  a  bent  twig  as  she  spoke. 

"  That  twig  is  crooked,"  said  Ralph.  His 
behaviour  was  irrational,  but  a  sudden  need  of 
hearing  human  speech  had  come  upon  him;  and, 
besides,  he  liked  her  voice,  which  was  soothing, 
soft  and  deep,  like  organ  notes  in  the  distance. 
14 


The  Willow  Weaver 

"  It  is  so,"  she  replied. 

"  Why  don't  you  throw  it  away?  " 

"  I  throw  nothing  away.  I  suffer  no  waste.  I 
put  all  my  willow  twigs  to  use — crooked  or  straight." 

"But  the  crooked  ones  spoil  the  shape  of  your 
basket." 

"  It  is  true.  They  spoil  the  shape  of  the  basket. 
I  shall  put  a  straight  one  by  the  side  of  the  crooked. 
That  balances  it  a  little." 

"  Still  the  whole  basket  is  awry." 

"  It  is  so." 

"  It  is  a  pity." 

"  It  is  a  pity.  But  it  cannot  be  helped.  It  will 
be  so  till  I  find  nothing  and  pluck  nothing  save 
straight  fair-growing  withies." 

"  Where  do  you  pick  them?  " 

"  From  the  floating  island  in  the  lake." 

"  I  don't  know  it.     Where  is  the  lake?  " 

"  There,"  she  answered.  She  waved  her  hand 
towards  the  waste  ground  with  its  slimy  clay  and 
broken  bricks. 

"There!     Where?" 

' '  There  —  there  —  there  —  my     child !  ' '      she 

answered,  smiling  gravely,  and  waving  her  hand 

again  at  the  immediate  foreground.      Campion 

saw  she  was  subject  to  hallucinations.    She  was 

15 


The  Willow  Weaver 

probably  much  alone,  and  certainly  very  poor. 
He  felt  impelled  to  do  what  was  obviously  the 
very  last  thing  he  should  have  done.  He  drew 
out  the  silk  scarf,  and  his  loose  silver. 

"  I  will  give  you  these  shillings,"  he  said,  "  if 
you  will  tie  this  tightly  round  my  wrists,  and 
promise,  whatever  happens,  never  to  tell  a  soul 
you  have  done  it.  Indeed,  it  will  probably  be  the 
worse  for  you  if  you  do  tell." 

"  I  will  not  take  your  money,"  she  replied. 
"  To  tell  you  the  truth  I  have  no  use  for  it.  But 
I  will  tie  the  knot  you  bid  me  tie.  It  is  thus  with 
me;  the  knots  with  which  men  charge  me  to 
bind  them,  I  can  by  no  means  refuse  to  fasten, 
but  I  cannot  undo  them." 

"  Tie  this  knot,"  he  said,  with  a  fault  piteous 
laugh.  "  And  let  it  remain  tied  till  I  ask  you  to 
undo  it.  But  first,  since  you  do  not  want  it " 

He  flung  the  silver  into  the  canal. 

"  Now  take  my  thanks  for  what  you  are  going 
to  do  for  me,  since  you'll  take  nothing  else. 
Here's  the  scarf." 

She  took  it.  He  crossed  his  wrists,  and  held 
them  out.  She  tied  the  scarf  loosely,  once. 

"  I  am  pleased  to  do  you  this  service,"  she  said 

kindly,  in  her  solemn  perfect  speech,  that  seemed 
16 


The  Willow  Weaver 

unsuited  to  her  poverty  and  her  humble  trade. 
"  Chiefly  I  am  pleased  because  of  the  honour 
which  is  mine,  that  I  should  take  the  place  of  the 
dweller  in  that  grey  small  house  on  the  hill  yonder. 
For,  I  suppose,  were  she  here,  you  would  beg  her, 
rather  than  me,  to  tie  this  knot." 

His  crossed  wrists  fell  apart;  the  silk  scarf 
fluttered  to  the  ground. 

"  My  God!  No!  "  he  said,  shuddering.  "  What 
do  you  mean?  Who  are  you?  " 

"  The  Willow- weaver." 

"  Do  you  know  her?  " 

"  Of  whom  do  you  ask  me,  my  child?  " 

"  My — my  mother,"  he  faltered;  and  now  the 
tears  were  in  his  eyes,  his  throat  was  choking, 
and  he  turned  his  face  from  her. 

"  Surely,"  she  made  answer,  "  I  know  her  well. 
And  because  such  a  mother  as  this  makes  my 
weaving  easier,  I,  the  Willow-weaver,  shall  be 
mother  to  her  son  to-night." 

"  I  do  not  deserve  it,"  he  muttered. 

She  did  not  heed  him ;  she  wove  apace,  seated 
as  before,  leaning  on  the  door-post  of  the  hut.  He 
fell  beside  her  kneeling,  and  holding  out  his  hands 
to  her  pleadingly : 

"  Willow-weaver,"  he  cried.     "  If  you  know 
17  B 


The  Willow  Weaver 

about  her,  do  you  know  about  me  too  ?  Or  must 
I  tell  you?  " 

"  Surely/'  she  said,  "  I  know  about  you.  Child 
of  so  many  prayers,  of  such  vain  hopes,  of  so 
many  innocent  womanly  ambitions  never  now  to 
be  fulfilled,  is  it  not  an  evil  thing  that  the  loving 
unwise  heart  in  that  hill  cottage  should  break 
through  you?  Is  it  not  an  evil  thing  in  the  eyes 
of  a  Willow-weaver  that  one  crooked  twig  should 
make  the  whole  weaving  awry?  Yet  these  things 
are  so,  and  may  not  now  be  changed." 

She  spoke  with  sober  and  stern  tenderness.  He 
flung  himself  on  the  heap  of  willow  withies,  and 
hid  his  face  from  her. 

"  I  know  it,"  he  sobbed.  "  Do  you  think  you 
need  to  tell  me  that?  I  was  going  to  kill  myself 
when  you  talked  to  me  of  my  mother.  And  what 
more  can  I  do?  What  more  can  I  do?  " 

"  You  can  turn  the  tide  by  the  waving  of  your 
hand,"  said  she.  "  You  can  stay  the  flight  of  the 
earth  through  space;  or  you  can  kill  yourself. 
Behold!  the  one  is  as  possible  as  either  of  the 
others.  Will  you  mend  the  broken  heart  in  the 
hill  cottage  by  the  way  of  the  black  canal  ?  Will 
you  wipe  out  the  shame  of  a  soul  by  the  death 

of  a  body?  " 

18 


The  Willow  Weaver 

He  moaned,  and  thrust  his  fingers  through  his 
hair,  clutching  and  twisting  it. 

"  Be  wiser,  child,"  she  said.  "  My  words  are 
harsh,  my  thought  is  gentle  towards  you.  I  said 
I,  the  Willow-weaver,  would  be  your  mother  to- 
night. What  do  you  see  from  my  hut  door,  child  ? ' ' 

He  raised  himself  obediently  from  the  withies 
and  told  her  what  he  saw. 

"  And  yet  there  is  more  to  be  seen  here,"  she 
said.  "  Because  there  is  more  I  spoke  to  you 
harshly,  pointing  out  the  ill  you  had  wrought. 
For  I  knew  that  here,  even  here  in  this  very  spot, 
there  is  another  country  whereof  you  are  native 
born,  and  wherein  you  live.  Therefore,  son  of 
that  good  mother  of  whom  you  and  I  know,  lie 
at  peace  upon  these  withies,  cut  from  the  floating 
island  in  this  lake  whereon  we  look;  I  shall  sing 
you  a  cradle  song  that  you  may  sleep.  When  you 
wake  the  Child's  Song  shall  never  wholly  leave 
your  ears  on  this  side  of  that  death  you  sought 
but  now,  and  you  shall  break  your  heart  and 
brain  with  longing  after  it  in  vain.  This,  for  the 
sake  of  that  good  mother,  is  the  Willow-weaver's 
mercy  to  you;  and  you  shall  find  that  men,  too, 
have  mercy  on  those  who  hear  in  broken  snatches 
the  Child's  Song." 

19 


The  Willow  Weaver 

The  power  of  the  woman  was  upon  him ;  meek 
and  dazed  as  a  tired  babe  he  lay  upon  the  twisted 
withies;  he  heard  the  sound  of  the  twigs  as  she 
twisted  them  in  and  out  in  her  weaving.  He  could 
neither  move  nor  speak;  he  wondered  dreamily 
whether  he  lay  in  a  trance  or  swoon,  or  whether 
this  was  death,  and  thus  the  problem  of  his  vanish- 
ing was  solved  without  effort  of  his  own.  He  felt 
either  the  light  cold  touch  of  her  finger  tip  or 
the  touch  of  a  willow  withy  between  his  brows. 
Suddenly,  how  and  when  he  did  not  know,  he 
saw  that  other  country  of  which  the  Willow- 
weaver  spake;  he  had  not  moved  from  the  spot; 
he  felt  sure  his  body  lay  on  the  willow  withies  in 
the  hut  by  the  canal.  He  knew  it  lay  there  with 
a  burden  of  sin  and  folly,  of  ignorance,  shame,  and 
remorse;  but  they  belonged  to  the  place  of  their 
brooding,  and  he,  reaching  forth  in  order  that  he 
might  know,  knew  them  as  apart  from  himself, 
like  a  school  task  learned  well  or  ill,  with  praise 
or  the  rod  for  its  reward.  He  saw  the  other 
country,  and  this  was  the  fashion  of  that  which 
he  thought  he  saw.  Whether  he  saw  it  as  it  was 
is  another  matter. 

On  every  side  lay  the  broad  shining  levels  of 
a  lake  of  silver,  he  did  not  know  whether  it  was 


The  Willow  Weaver 

water,  or  silver  fire  that  had  no  heat,  but  was 
still  and  cool  as  the  hour  before  a  summer  sun- 
rise. He  saw  no  shores  nor  any  boundary  set  to 
it;  as  far  as  his  eyes,  or  some  other  sense  than 
sight,  would  suffer  him  to  perceive,  the  waters 
lay.  From  the  lake  rose  a  many-petalled  pink 
blossom;  about  each  petal  quivered  a  delicate 
fringe  of  many-coloured  flame,  and  at  the  heart 
of  the  fiery  flower  that  sprang  from  the  water's 
breast  was  music.  As  he  saw  these  things  his  life 
passed  into  them;  or  else  they  were  the  body  of 
his  life.  Thereupon  a  certain  knowledge  came  to 
him,  but  it  was  knowledge  the  man  was  never 
able  to  tell  to  any  one,  not  even  to  himself.  He 
heard  a  high  clear  voice  singing,  so  he  afterwards 
remembered,  but  whether  it  was  the  Cradle  Song 
of  the  Willow-weaver,  or  the  speech  of  the  word- 
less music  at  the  blossom's  heart,  he  could  not 
tell. 

It  is  my  belief  (I  who  tell  these  things)  that  the 
words,  and  indeed  the  whole  matter,  were  by  no 
manner  of  means  such  as  are  here  recorded.  He 
told  me  the  words  he  heard  were  something  like 
to  these,  but  he  admitted  they  were  not  really 
like  them  either  in  sound  or  sense.  This  is  what 
he  crooned  in  the  day  that  came  after,  when  men 

21 


The  Willow  Weaver 

said  his  mother-wit  had  been  stolen  by  the  Folk 
of  Peace : 

Thou  mak'st'thy  cry* to  me,'  thotfmak'st  thy  plea, 
I  watch  the  waters  of  a  changeless  sea. 
Upon  its  breast  I  mark  a  shadow  fall. 
Wherein  a  myriad  shadows  toss  and  crawl. 
Weep'st  thou  because  their  turmoil  will  not  cease, 

0  passing  ripple  on  the  Lake  of  Peace  ? 

1  watch  the  toiling  shadows  fight  and  strive, 
I  hear  the  murmur  of  a  Dream-world  hive. 
Why  is  their  warfare  more  to  thee  than  me, 
Thou  wave  that  risest  from  a  boundless  sea  ? 
No  shadow-battle  stirs  the  silent  breast 

Of  the  deep  waters  of  the  Lake  of  Rest. 

Where  mourning  shadows  throng  the  dreary  side 

Of  the  black  river's  foul  and  sluggish  tide, 

I  see  the  shining  of  the  Silver  Peace, 

I  hear  its  music  bid  their  moaning  cease. 

Thy  fair  is  foul  to  me,  thy  foul  is  fair; 

Thy  songs  are  cries,  thy  joys  aie  pain-fraught  care; 

Thy  griefs  are  gladness,  and  thy  woes  are  gain, 

Thy  deaths  are  jewels  in  an  age-long  chain. 

Thy  sins  but  shadows  on  the  waters  wide, 

Thy  virtues  gleams  upon  the  silent  tide. 

When  those  twenty-four  hours  in  which  Ralph 
Campion  was  to  vanish  were  ended,  he  came 
wandering,  hatless,  over  the  green-brown  fields 
in  the  drenching  rain ;  he  was  soaked  to  the  skin, 
but  he  did  not  seem  to  know  this.  He  asked  to 
see  his  superior  and  elder,  who  was  even  then  in 
serious  consultation  with  his  father-in-law  and 
employer.  When  this  man,  Mr.  Warrener,  heard 

32 


The  Willow  Weaver 

Ralph  Campion  was  there  he  was  glad.  He  was 
a  plain  dealing  person,  and  he  thought  when 
people  did  wrong  and  were  found  out  it  was  good 
for  them  to  be  punished.  His  son-in-law  on  the 
other  hand  was  sorry  and  alarmed. 

"  Show  Mr.  Campion  in,"  said  the  older  of  the 
two  men  who  were  discussing  Ralph  Campion's 
sins.  Mr.  Campion  came  in,  dripping.  He  smiled, 
greeted  his  hosts,  and  tried  to  explain  what  had 
happened  and  why  he  had  not  vanished.  The 
two  listeners  looked  at  each  other  silently;  to  do 
the  younger  of  the  twain  justice  he  seemed  to  be 
shocked  and  dismayed.  There  was  a  pause.  The 
elder  laid  his  hand  on  Ralph  Campion's  shoulder : 
"  Sit  down,  Campion,"  he  said  gently.  "  Sit  down 
and  keep  quiet.  You're  dripping  wet,  you  know; 
you'll  be  ill,  you  must  see  the  doctor.  I'll  send 
for  him  at  once.  There's  no  need  for  you  to  worry 
about  anything."  Then  he  drew  his  son-in-law 
out  of  earshot. 

"  This  must  be  hushed  up,"  he  whispered. 
"  You  see  what's  happened  to  him.  He's  off  his 
head.  Didn't  you  see  it  yesterday?  Where  are 
his  people  ?  They  must  be  sent  for,  and  the  doctor 
too.  I'll  telephone  to  him  at  once.  Whether  this 
is  a  cause  or  an  effect  I  don't  know.  Be  charitable 


The  Willow  Weaver 

and  assume  the  first.  Anyway  we  will  say  nothing ; 
he's  not  responsible  for  what  he  did." 

It  was  more  of  a  truth  than  he  knew.  The  other 
man,  white  as  a  sheet,  assented  eagerly. 

Certain  superstitious  folk  of  Celtic  blood  said 
that  the  son  of  the  sorrowful,  patient  little  old 
widow  who  lived  with  his  mother  in  the  small 
grey  house  on  the  windswept  hill  above  the  church- 
yard, had  wandered  in  the  "  gentle  places  "  whence 
no  man  ever  returns  to  the  human  habitations; 
only  the  bodily  seeming  of  such  a  man  comes 
back;  he  is  away  with  the  "good  people";  at 
night  he  dances  in  their  mystic  rings  and  makes 
merry  with  them  in  the  heart  of  the  hills.  This, 
they  said,  was  the  case  with  Ralph  Campion,  for 
he  had  the  look  of  eternal  childhood  on  his  face 
and  the  fairy  fire  was  in  his  eyes.  But  they  were 
wrong;  it  was  with  him,  as  the  Willow-weaver 
said ;  the  Cradle  Song  of  the  Children  of  the  Lake 
of  Peace  would  not  wholly  leave  his  ears,  and 
because  he  could  not  recall  nor  sing  it  perfectly 
he  wandered  bewildered,  trying  vainly  to  interpret 
its  broken  snatches,  with  labouring  brain  and 
longing,  breaking  heart. 


THE  BENDING  OF  THE  TWIG 

EARLY  in  the  morning  of  the  hot  July  day  there 
had  been  a  sea-mist,  and  the  fog  lay  on  the  horizon 
like  a  rolled  banner  gleaming  with  ineffable  tints 
of  opalescent  purple.  The  glassy  sea  was  purest 
blue,  save  where  the  shimmering  paths  of  the 
currents  shone  silver-white  or  where  the  lap  and 
fret  of  waves  at  the  cliff  foot  made  the  water 
pink  with  Devon  earth.  The  weed  on  the  rocks 
glowed  orange-brown  in  the  dazzling  light,  and 
the  dark  line  of  the  low-flying  shag  gave  the  only 
sombre  touch  to  the  brilliant  hues  of  land,  sea, 
and  sky.  The  turf  sweet  with  the  breath  of  wild 
thyme,  and  studded  with  pale  yellow  rock  rose, 
crept  well-nigh  to  the  water's  edge.  Here  a 
hundred  years  ago  the  sea  had  claimed  tribute  of 
the  earth,  and  a  big  landslip  rent  the  bosom  of  the 
patient  mother.  Half  a  mile  of  cliff  had  fallen, 
and  in  the  chasm  thus  made,  now  filled  full  with 
greenery  and  prodigal  growth  of  fern,  bramble,  and 
berry,  a  long  white  house  stood  sun-bathed  and 
creeper-clad. 

25 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

A  little  spring  sprang  seawards  from  the  cliff, 
tinkling  in  a  baby  waterfall  down  grey  rocks 
splashed  with  orange  lichen,  and  forming  in  a 
small  crystal  pool  ere  it  ran  on  to  lose  itself  in 
the  greyish-white  sand  of  the  shore. 

By  this  little  pool  sat  three  children:  two 
flaxen-haired  girls  and  a  small  dark-haired  grey- 
eyed  boy.  The  girls  lay  on  the  ground;  their 
chins  resting  on  their  clasped  hands,  their  eyes 
round,  blue,  and  awestruck.  The  boy  knelt 
stiffly  on  the  verge  of  the  pool,  his  eyes  looking 
straight  out  over  the  sea,  his  hands  linked  behind 
his  head.  He  was  a  slim  little  child  with  a  small 
pale  face,  delicate  irregular  features,  and  long- 
lashed  grey  eyes. 

"  They  came  up,"  he  was  saying,  "  up  the 
little  path  that  comes  from  the  shore.  They  left 
their  boats  on  the  beach.  They  broke  down  our 
doors,  making  a  great  noise.  The  doors  fell  down ; 
I  heard  them  fall ;  I  could  hear  the  others  shriek- 
ing as  the  men  killed  them.  I  was  painting,  you 
know;  I  painted  coloured  letters  round  a  face 
which  was  in  the  middle.  I  drew  the  face  myself; 
it  was  a  white  face  with  gold  all  round  it.  The 
men  broke  into  my  room  and  killed  an  old  man 

who  was  there  with  me.     I  stood  with  my  back 
26 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

against  the  wall.  I  put  out  my  hands,  so ;  I  had 
no  sword,  and — and — then  they  killed  me  ..." 

The  child  broke  off  abruptly;  he  gasped,  threw 
himself  face  downwards  on  the  turf  sobbing  either 
with  grief  or  excitement.  The  audience  drew  a 
long  breath.  Never — never — never — in  all  the 
annals  of  the  nursery  had  even  the  most  gifted 
grown-up  person  told  them  such  tales  as  did  this, 
their  small  orphan  cousin. 

"  What's  the  matter  now,"  said  a  man's  voice. 
"  Quarrelling?  Dennis,  why  are  you  crying?  " 

Three  people  had  unheard  approached  the  little 
group;  a  man,  a  young  girl,  and  a  boy.  The 
man  and  boy  were  sufficiently  alike  to  be  easily 
recognisable  as  father  and  son.  The  boy  was 
seventeen  or  eighteen  years  old;  handsome, 
vigorous,  and  graceful.  He  carried  a  gun;  he 
had  been  shooting  rabbits  on  the  cliffs,  and  two 
little  helpless  brown  bodies  dangled  from  his 
left  hand.  The  man  was  past  middle  age,  but 
time  alone  had  not  carved  the  straight,  severe 
lines  about  his  mouth,  nor  made  his  eyes  so  cold. 
That  was  the  work  of  temperament;  the  comely 
lad  beside  him  would  never  have  such  lips  and 
eyes,  though  the  tinting  and  moulding  of  the  two 

faces  were  very  much  the  same. 
27 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

The  crying  child  scrambled  to  his  feet  blushing 
and  half  laughing;  his  grief  had  not  been  very 
deeply  rooted.  The  youngest  girl  clinging  to 
her  father's  hand  cried  out  eagerly  in  praise  of 
the  tale;  "  Dennis  tells  us  such  lovely  stories, 
daddy." 

The  boy  with  the  gun  threw  the  rabbits  on  the 
grass.  "  Kitty's  quite  right,"  he  said.  "They're 
ripping.  I  can't  think  how  he  gets  hold  of  them. 
He  says  they're  true."  "  He  says  they  happened 
to  him,"  broke  in  the  enthusiastic  auditor.  "  And 
he  tells  us  what  he  sees  too.  O  Dennis,  tell  them 
about  the  little  men  you  saw  in  the  mist  this 
morning." 

The  dark  brows  of  the  elder  listener  drew 
together. 

"  Look  here,  Dennis,"  he  said  shortly,  "  if  you 
prefer  to  tell  stories  to  the  girls  rather  than  go 
rabbiting  with  the  boys  " — there  was  a  little 
touch  of  contempt  in  the  voice — "  of  course 
there's  no  harm  in  that;  but  you  must  not  say 
what  is  untrue." 

"  But  it  is  true,"  said  the  child  eagerly.     "  It 

is  true,  Uncle  Hugh.     That  did  happen  to  me; 

it  did  really.     It  was  a  grey  house  by  the  sea,  and 

they  killed  me  in  the  room  where  I  was  painting." 

98 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

"  Take  care,  Dennis.  When  did  this  happen, 
may  I  ask?  " 

"  I — I  don't  know,  Uncle  Hugh." 

"  Nor  any  one  else.  Did  you  tell  the  girls  it 
was  true?  " 

"It  is  true,"  said  Dennis,  beginning  to  pant 
and  rock  from  heel  to  toe  and  back  again.  "  It 
is  quite  true." 

"  It  is,  is  it?  And  you  see  little  men  in  the 
mist,  eh?  " 

"  I  did  this  morning." 

"  And  he  sees  pictures  in  the  water,"  broke  in 
one  of  the  listening  children. 

"  Do  you  see  pictures  in  the  water,  Dennis?  " 

"  Yes,  sometimes." 

"  In  that  water  for  instance?     Look  and  see." 

The  child  knelt  down  and  stared  into  the  pool. 

"  I  don't  " — he  began  after  a  pause.  "  Yes. 
I  do,  yes  I  do,  I  see  a  little  house  and  a  cornfield 
and  a — O,  there  it's  gone!  " 

The  man  laid  his  finger-tips  lightly  on  the  child's 
shoulder.  "  Get  up  and  listen  to  me,"  he  said 
gravely.  Dennis  rose;  the  touch  had  not  been 
at  all  rough;  on  the  contrary  it  was  very  gentle, 
and  the  voice  was  quiet,  but  there  was  a  sense  of 

danger  in  the  air;    an  ominous  thrill;    and  the 
29 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

child's  eyes,   why  he  knew  not,   grew  slightly 
frightened. 

"  What  you  have  just  said  is  a  lie,"  said  his 
elder  very  distinctly,  "  and  you  know  that  just 
as  well  as  I  do ;  you  are  very  young  yet,  and  I 
don't  want  to  be  hard  on  you.  If  you  confess 
that  you  told  a  lie,  I  won't  say  any  more  about 
it,  unless  you  do  it  again.  Come." 

"  But — I  can't.     It  wasn't  a  lie." 

"  Take  care  now.  Tell  me  you  said  what 
wasn't  true  and  are  sorry;  and  then  run  into 
tea  and  forget  about  it." 

The  child  began  to  tremble.  "  But  I  can't — 
it  wasn't — indeed — it — 0  dear,  O  dear!  " 

"  I  tell  you  I  don't  want  to  be  hard  upon  you. 
I  mean  to  be,  and  I  hope  I  always  am,  perfectly 
just.  I  shall  ask  you  three  times  whether  your 
stories  are  true.  If  you  say  no — well  and  good. 
If  you  persist  in  saying  yes,  you'll — take  the 
consequences,  that's  all.  I  shall  ask  you  this 
question  every  day  till  I  make  you  speak  the 
truth." 

Things  were  now  looking  very  serious.     The 
little  girls  were  struck  with  awe.     The  young 
girl  and  the  lad  exchanged  glances  and  strove 
to  extenuate  the  crime  of  Dennis. 
30 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

"  O  please,  Mr.  March,"  said  the  girl  softly, 
"  he's  so  very  little  and  he's  imaginative,  you 
know." 

"  He's  dotty,  poor  little  chap,"  said  the  boy 
cheerily.  "  He  means  no  harm,  dad.  He'll 
be  all  right  when  he  goes  to  school.  Let  him 
off  this  once." 

"  He  has  the  matter  in  his  own  hands.  Now 
then,  Dennis,  are  these  tales  of  yours  true?  " 

"  Yes,"  faltered  the  quivering  lips. 

"  Once  more,  are  they  true?  " 

"They  are  true!  they  are  true!  What  shall 
I  do?  If  you  kill  me,  they're  true." 

"  I'm  not  at  all  likely  to  kill  you,  but  I  mean 
to  cure  you  of  lying.  It's  obstinacy;  for  you 
must  know  you've  told  lies.  Are  these  things 
true?" 

"  Y — ye — I  mean — I  think  so,"  hedged  poor 
Dennis  desperately. 

"  Go  into  the  house,"  said  the  man  with  a  push. 
"  You've  brought  it  on  yourself,  and  it  serves 
you  right." 

Consolatory  reflection.  The  child  slunk  into 
the  house  crying  bitterly.  The  girl  attempted 
further  intercession. 

"  It's  no  good,  Kate,"  said  the  man  angrily. 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

"I'm  shocked  at  the  child's  obstinacy.  He  has 
told  a  gratuitous  falsehood,  and  he  must,  as  I 
said,  take  the  consequences." 

So  Dennis  took  the  consequences,  and  woke  up 
at  night  shrieking  with  nightmare  as  their  direct 
result.  Daily  the  same  question  was  put  to  him, 
and  received  the  same  answer  which  produced  the 
same  pains  and  penalties,  save  that  they  grew  a 
little  more  grievous  daily  because  of  the  increasing 
blackness  of  his  sin.  Dennis  went  about  with  a 
white  face  and  silent  tongue;  his  eyes  were  red 
and  swollen,  and  there  were  purple  rings  under 
them.  At  last  on  the  fifth  day  the  child  break- 
ing down  confessed  himself  to  be  a  wilful  and 
egregious  perverter  of  the  truth. 

"  Why  couldn't  you  have  said  that  before?" 
said  Hugh  March.  "  Now  speak  the  truth  in 
future,  there's  a  good  boy." 

Dennis  promised  that  he  certainly  would  do 
so,  and  went  away  to  cry  over  his  first  lie.  He 
knew  that  lying  was  a  grievous  sin;  and  the 
preacher  under  whom  the  March  family  "  sat  " 
predicted  a  fiery  doom  for  sinners.  Dennis  cried 
over  his  probable  damnation;  but  the  undying 
worm  and  quenchless  fire  of  a  vengeful  God  were 
far  away,  whereas  Hugh  March's  birch  was 
32 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

horribly  near;  so  Dennis  risked  eternity  for  the 
sake  of  comparative  well-being  in  time. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  March  was  the 
typical  wicked  uncle  of  nursery  tales;  he  was 
sincerely  anxious  to  be  kind  to  his  dead  brother's 
little  boy.  The  "  queerness  "  of  Dennis  was  a 
source  of  concerned  perplexity  to  his  guardian. 
Perry,  his  own  son,  whom  he  idolised,  was  an 
athlete  rather  than  a  scholar,  and  March  was  glad 
of  the  fact;  nevertheless  he  would  have  been 
satisfied  with  his  fragile  non-athletic  nephew  if 
he  had  shown  signs  of  studiousness ;  but  the  child 
was  not  clever;  he  was  backward,  lazy,  and 
dreamy;  his  only  talents  were  a  gift  for  drawing 
and  an  eye  for  colour  effects,  which  were  "  mere 
accomplishments "  in  the  eyes  of  his  uncle. 
Dennis  had  no  other  gifts  unless  his  stories 
presaged  a  future  novelist. 

Dennis,  on  his  side,  was  stunned  and  terrified 
by  his  uncle's  treatment  of  his  powers  of  vision. 
His  Irish  mother,  like  her  son,  possessed  "  the 
sight,"  and  she  had  treated  his  visions  as  simple 
facts,  which  were  by  no  means  extraordinary; 
hence  the  child  was  not  vain  of  the  gift,  nor  did 
he  dream  of  boasting  of  or  colouring  his  visions. 
When  his  mother  died  and  he  came  to  live  with 
33  c 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

his  uncle  and  cousins,  he  came  simply  and  con- 
fidingly as  to  friends;  unsuspicious  of  the  possi- 
bility of  harshness,  inexperienced  in  aught  save 
tenderness.  To  be  suddenly  denounced  as  an 
obstinate  liar,  to  be  flogged  because  he  saw  things 
which  his  cousins  did  not  see,  not  only  terrified 
but  stupefied  him.  He  relapsed  into  bewildered 
silence,  and  bent  all  his  small  powers  of  deception 
to  conceal  his  power  of  vision. 

Hitherto  "the  sight"  had  been  spasmodic; 
but  either  from  some  influence  of  climate  or 
because  of  his  nervous  tension  it  now  became 
almost  unintermittent ;  he  saw  very  often,  and 
the  strain  of  concealment  troubled  him.  The 
visions  were  in  a  measure  consolatory;  that  which 
he  saw  did  not  frighten  him,  and  he  lived  in  a 
world  of  sound,  colour,  and  light,  which  was 
unshared  by  his  companions.  The  child  was 
very  lonely,  for  he  feared  to  talk  much  lest  he 
should  betray  himself;  nevertheless  he  became 
gradually  aware  of  the  fact  that  he  had  one 
staunch  and  kindly  friend.  This  was  his  cousin 
Perry. 

Perry  was  a  good  humoured,  genial  and  sym- 
pathetic soul ;  his  very  superabundant  vigour  and 
strength  gave  him  a  chivalrous  sense  of  pitiful 
34 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

protection  towards  the  poor  little  frightened 
nervous  child. 

Once  at  a  picnic  on  the  Head,  Dennis  began  to 
watch  some  little  folk  who  were  unseen  by  the 
others.  Suddenly  he  became  aware  that  Perry 
was  watching  him  with  puzzled  eyes  and  knitted 
brows.  Dennis  started,  his  vision  vanished,  and 
he  lay  quivering  with  fear  lest  Perry  should  ask 
him  what  he  had  been  looking  at  with  such 
interest.  But  Perry  did  not  ask;  he  smiled  at 
his  little  cousin,  and  turned  his  eyes  away. 

After  the  picnic  that  night  a  party  sat  on  the 
verandah  and  told  ghost  stories  of  a  grisly  nature. 
Dennis  grew  frightened,  the  "  other  world  "  was 
real  to  him;  this  grim  aspect  of  it  was  terrible. 
He  did  not  understand  the  things  he  saw,  and 
the  dread  of  seeing  the  horrors  described  in  the 
tales  fell  upon  him.  The  nervous  system  of  a 
sensitive  child  is  a  delicate  instrument,  though 
it  is  sometimes  the  custom  to  treat  it  as  though 
it  were  constructed  of  equal  parts  of  whalebone, 
steel,  and  cast-iron.  The  stream  of  tales  ran  dry. 

"  What's    become    of    all    your    fine    stories, 

Dennis?  "  said  one  of  the  circle  mockingly;   one 

who  knew  of  the  little  tragedy  enacted  a  month 

ago.     "  I'm  afraid  I've  spoilt  the  flow  of  Dennis's 

35 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

genius,"  said  March,  and  the  laugh  rippled  round 
the  circle  at  the  expense  of  the  young  seer.  Is 
this  world  so  purely  joyous  that  we  should  forget 
our  heavenly  heritage  if  our  brethren  did  not 
try  now  and  then  to  give  us  a  little  pain,  even 
though  it  be  a  tongue  stab  to  make  us  less  con- 
tented with  our  earthly  bliss  ?  It  would  seem  that 
there  be  many  who  think  so.  Perry  put  forth 
an  arm  in  the  darkness  and  laid  it  round  the 
child's  neck. 

"  That's  a  beastly  shame,"  he  said  to  the  first 
speaker. 

They  were  only  four  homely  schoolboy  words; 
it  was  only  the  touch  of  a  strong  kindly  young 
arm,  but  they  drew  forth  a  disproportionate  flood 
of  adoring  gratitude  from  the  child's  sensitive 
heart.  Therefore  when  he  went  to  bed  that  night 
he  ventured  to  ask  a  favour  of  Perry.  In  Dennis's 
room  there  was  an  unpleasant-looking  green  and 
yellow  curtain,  which  had  a  reprehensible  habit 
of  swaying  when  there  was  not  any  wind.  Ghost 
stories  had  made  that  curtain  a  thing  of  horror 
to  Dennis;  he  feared  it  would  draw  back  very 
slowly  one  of  these  days,  and  he  should  see  some 
hideous  object  gibbering  behind  it  —  a  class  of 
vision  of  which  he  had  formerly  never  dreamed. 
36 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

He  once  asked  whether  the  curtain  might  be 
taken  away :  but  as  he  could  assign  no  reason  for 
his  request  he  was  told  "  not  to  be  silly,"  and  the 
curtain,  like  the  poor,  remained  with  him  always. 
Alas!  for  the  dumb  terrors,  the  helpless  in- 
articulateness of  the  soul  of  a  young  misunder- 
stood child. 

To-night  he  took  courage. 

"  Perry,"  he  said,  "  won't  you  come  and  stay 
with  me  till  I'm  asleep?  " 

Since  the  five  days'  holy  war  which  March 
had  waged  with  Dennis  the  child  had  stammered 
slightly;  it  was  a  pathetic  little  falter  of  the 
tongue  and  Perry  felt  vaguely  touched  by  it. 
He  looked  at  him  questioningly.  At  last  he  said : 

"  Why?    Well,  never  mind.    Right  you  are." 

He  entered  the  room  whistling,  and  by  some 
instinct  drew  the  green  and  yellow  curtain  back. 
Dennis  undressed  and  slipped  into  bed.  Perry 
knelt  down,  put  his  arm  over  the  child  and  spoke 
kindly : 

"  You're  not  very  happy  here,  Den,"  he  said; 
"  what's  the  matter  with  you?  " 

Dennis  bit  his  lip  and  closed  his  eyes;   at  last 
by  dint  of  coaxing  Perry  arrived  at  the  fact  that 
Dennis  was  mourning  over  the  sin  of  deceit. 
37 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

"  That  wasn't  much,"  said  Perry  immorally 
but  cheerfully. 

He  hesitated,  then  he  said  in  a  whisper: 

"  I  say,  Denny,  which  was  the  lie,  eh?  " 

He  felt  the  slender  body  beneath  his  arm  start, 
quiver,  and  grow  unnaturally  still. 

"  Was  it  a  lie  that  you  saw  those  things  or 
that  you  didn't  see  them,  which?  " 

"  Th-that  I  saw  th-them." 

There  was  a  pause.    Then  Perry  said  gently : 

"  Poor  little  chap;  it's  a  shame.  All  right  old 
man.  Go  to  sleep;  I'll  stay  with  you." 

To  himself  he  said:  "  Who's  to  blame  for  that 
lie,  Den  or  the  dad?  " 

The  holidays  were  nearly  over;  Perry  was 
about  to  return  for  his  last  term  to  Harrow  and 
Dennis  was  going  for  his  first  term  to  a  pre- 
paratory school.  Before  his  final  departure  Perry 
was  going  to  walk  fifteen  miles  in  order  to  stay 
for  a  couple  of  days  with  some  friends.  A  week 
before  this  visit  there  was  a  farewell  picnic  at 
the  Head.  It  was  a  lovely  day  and  the  sea  was 
blue  and  calm.  Perry  was  on  the  cliff  building 
the  fire  for  the  picnic  tea;  Dennis  was  on  the 
rocks  below.  Then  he  turned  and  ran ;  he  rushed 
up  the  cliff  path  sobbing  out  that  there  was  a 
38 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

drowned  man  in  the  water  below.  Of  course 
March,  Perry,  and  three  or  four  young  men  ran 
to  the  shore  only  to  see  the  water  rippling  peace- 
fully in  and  the  brown  weed  swaying  with  the 
lazy  tide. 

March  shouted  to  the  child  on  the  cliff: 

"  Come  here." 

Dennis  obeyed  him  shuddering  still. 

"  There's  no  drowned  man  here,"  said  March 
sternly.  "  Why  did  you  say  there  was?  " 

The  child  caught  his  breath  with  a  jerk  and 
his  face  grew  white  as  ashes.  The  thing  he  so 
dreaded  had  come ;  he  had  betrayed  himself.  He 
glanced  imploringly  at  his  only  hope — Perry,  and 
his  lip  quivered. 

"  It  was  the  weed  he  saw,"  said  Perry.  "  He's 
always  fanciful  and  nervous  you  know." 

"  Nonsense,"  said  March.  "  These  are  his  old 
tricks.  I  thought  I'd  cured  you  of  this,  Dennis." 

He  left  the  shore  with  an  angry  glance  at  the 
child. 

Dennis  began  to  cry,  and  Perry  laid  a  hand  on 
his  shoulder.  Dennis  clutched  his  arm. 

"  O  Perry,"  he  wailed,  "do  go  to  him.     Do 
speak  to  him.   Do  tell  him  I'm  sorry.   I'd  n-never 
have  said  what  I  saw  if  I  hadn't  thought  everyb- 
body  could  see  it  t-too." 
39 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

"  I  thought  so/'  said  Perry  under  his  breath; 
"  you  do  see  these  things  and  you  pretend  you 
don't  for  fear  of  a  licking." 

"  Don't  tell.  Please  don't  tell;  dear  Perry, 
d-don't  tell." 

"All  right,  don't  cry.  I'll  speak  to  the 
governor." 

But  Perry  spoke  in  vain.  March  was  an 
obstinate  thick-headed  man,  and  he  was  very 
angry  indeed.  The  vials  of  his  righteous  wrath 
descended  on  the  luckless  seer,  who  was  utterly 
broken  and  unnerved  in  consequence.  Perry  also 
was  very  angry  though  not  with  the  helpless  little 
victim  of  March's  dull  wits.  When  three  days 
after  the  child's  punishment  a  drowned  sailor  was 
actually  washed  up  at  the  Head,  Perry  boldly 
avowed  his  belief  in  the  visions  of  Dennis.  March 
was  as  angry  with  Perry  as  it  was  possible  for 
him  to  be  with  his  idolised  only  son.  He  made 
many  acute  and  scathing  remarks  about  ignorance, 
superstition,  and  naughty,  lying,  hysterical  chil- 
dren whose  imagination  and  hysteria  must  be 
crushed  with  the  strong  hand  of  authority. 

Perry  went  away  in  a  very  bad  temper,  and 
Dennis  remained  behind  in  such  a  state  of  abject 

terror  that  he  hardly  dared  to  grasp  his  coffee 
40 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

cup  when  it  was  offered  to  him  at  the  breakfast 
table  lest  it  should  prove  to  be  an  elusive  and 
unshared  vision. 

On  the  evening  of  Perry's  departure  Dennis 
stood  at  the  door  of  his  uncle's  study  trying  to 
make  up  his  mind  to  go  in.  Like  many  men  who 
never  read  anything  save  the  daily  paper  March 
had  a  "  study."  At  last  Dennis  went  in.  March 
who  was  writing  a  letter  looked  up : 

"  Well,  Dennis,  what  is  it?  " 

"  H-have  you  heard  from  Perry,  Uncle?  " 
stammered  the  child. 

"  Heard  from  Perry !  The  boy's  daft.  He  only 
left  this  morning." 

"  O,"  said  Dennis  nervously,  "  y-yes,  so  he  did; 
I  f -forgot." 

And  he  crept  out  again  like  a  frightened  mouse. 

The  next  morning  a  telegram  arrived  for  Perry 
which  his  father  opened;  it  was  from  the  friends 
with  whom  he  was  supposed  to  be  staying  asking 
the  reason  of  his  non-arrival;  Perry  was  going 
over  to  play  in  a  cricket  match;  hence  their 
agitation.  March  rode  over  to  them  at  once. 
Perry  had  not  arrived;  inquiries  on  the  road 
gained  no  tidings  of  him.  Search  was  made  for 
him  throughout  that  day  and  through  the  night 
41 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

and  through  the  next  day  and  still  there  was  no 
news  of  Perry. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  March  was  shaken 
to  the  finest  fibre  of  his  soul.  His  son  was  the 
apple  of  his  eye,  the  best  beloved  of  all  his 
children.  He  felt  a  tremor  of  the  nerves  which 
he  would  have  called  weakness  and  affectation  in 
another.  When  on  the  third  night  the  searchers 
returned  with  no  tidings  of  the  young  man,  March 
went  to  his  room  with  a  grey-hued  face  and  eyes 
that  were  glazed  with  agony  and  suspense.  He 
sat  at  his  table  and  bowed  his  head  upon  it.  He 
tried  to  pray — March  was  a  somewhat  conven- 
tionally religious  man — but  he  could  only  groan. 
In  the  room  above  where  was  the  green  and 
yellow  curtain  the  child  knelt  by  the  side  of  the 
bed  shaking  from  head  to  foot,  the  drops  of  agony 
standing  on  his  forehead.  The  soul  which  was  so 
much  older  than  the  little  body  was  wrestling 
in  the  throes  of  a  complex  passion  of  love  and 
personal  cowardly  dread;  the  poor  little  ten- 
year  old  body  could  scarcely  support  the  strain. 

In  the  afternoon,  two  hours  after  Perry  had 
left,  Dennis  knelt  by  the  little  pool  and  chanced 
to  look  therein.  Before  his  eyes  a  picture  grew. 
It  was  Perry  stunned^ and  lifeless  lying  in  a 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

hollow,  the  mouth  of  which  was  hidden  by  elder 
bushes  with  their  luscious  black  berries.  It  was 
a  narrow  rocky  crevasse  formed  by  the  rending 
slipping  land.  Everything  about  the  picture  was 
very  clear;  on  the  hill  above  the  hollow  was  an 
old  pine  tree  twisted  into  a  strange  shape ;  there 
was  a  bent  bough  on  it  on  which  a  human  form 
dangled — a  dead  man  hanged  by  the  neck  to  the 
bent  tree.  This  was  the  vision  that  had  driven 
Dennis  to  his  uncle's  room ;  since  then  the  picture 
appeared  to  him  again  and  yet  again.  Sometimes 
the  hanged  man  was  not  there,  but  the  scene  was 
always  the  same  point  for  point.  Even  now  as 
he  knelt  it  formed  itself  between  him  and  the 
green  and  yellow  curtain. 

The  child  sobbed  and  twisted  his  fingers  in  his 
hair.  In  his  ears  rang  the  stern  words:  "  If  I 
hear  a  whisper  of  this  again  I  shall  write  very 
strongly  to  Mr.  Brownlow  and  warn  him  of  your 
untruthfulness." 

Mr.  Brownlow  was  Dennis's  future  school- 
master and  poor  Dennis  pictured  himself  as  being 
pilloried  and  held  up  for  execration  before  a  whole 
community  of  youthful  devotees  of  truth.  But 
then  there  was  Perry.  Perry  had  been  kind  to 
him ;  Perry  had  banished  the  terrors  of  the  green 
43 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

and  yellow  curtain ;  had  tried  to  screen  him  from 
wrath.  If  only  some  one  else  could  see!  His 
Highland  nurse  had  told  him  "  the  sight "  was 
God's  gift.  If  only  He  would  give  that  gift  to 
some  one  else;  to  some  one  who  would  not  be 
punished  and  scolded  because  of  his  possession. 
Dennis  had  prayed  on  this  subject  with  a  child's 
unreasoning  and  sometimes  unreasonable  faith, 
and  now  he  once  more  extended  his  clasped  hands 
and  sobbed  into  the  darkness: 

"  O  do-do-do  make  some  one  else  see  instead 
of  me." 

But  no  one  else  saw,  and  the  burden,  responsi- 
bility, and  terror  of  a  gift,  whatsoever  be  its 
nature,  lay  heavily  on  the  slender  shoulders  of 
Dennis.  Therefore  the  end  was  inevitable.  All 
strong  powers  lie  upon  the  men  who  possess  them 
like  mighty  compelling  forces  unless  the  man  be 
stronger  than  the  gift.  To  Dennis  and  to  no  other 
was  the  vision;  as  he  closed  his  streaming  eyes 
it  slowly  formed  itself  once  more.  He  staggered 
to  his  feet  and  made  for  the  room  below;  the 
force  was  stronger  than  he,  or  else  he  was  stronger 
than  his  weak  nerves  and  trembling  body.  Though 
March  should  beat  him  within  an  inch  of  his  fragile 
life  he  must  tell  that  which  he  saw.  He  did  not 
44 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

hesitate  now;  he  opened  the  door  and  went 
straight  in.  March  raised  his  head,  started,  and 
stood  up. 

"  Dennis!  Bless  my  soul,  child,  what  are  you 
doing  at  this  hour?  Not  undressed.  Are  you  ill." 

"  Uncle  Hugh,"  said  Dennis,  steadying  himself 
by  the  table  edge,  "  I — I  know  where  Perry  is. 
At  least  I  think  so." 

"  You  know  where  Perry  is.  What  do  you 
mean?  " 

The  child  began  to  describe  the  place  of  his 
vision  and  March  listened  with  growing  interest 
and  excitement;  when  Dennis  spoke  of  the  pine 
and  the  dangling  figure  he  sprang  up : 

"  It's  the  highwayman's  pine,"  he  almost 
shouted;  "  they  say  a  man  was  hanged  there  a 
hundred  years  ago.  But  I'll  take  my  oath  you've 
never  been  there.  How  do  you  know  the  place?  " 

"  I  s-saw  it,"  faltered  Dennis,  and  having  thus 
betrayed  his  evil-doing  he  swung  forward  and 
fainted.  When  he  recovered  he  was  lying  on  a 
sofa  and  March  was  pouring  water  on  his  face. 

"  Lie  still,"  he  said  kindly.  "  Don't  be 
frightened.  You  must  have  been  dreaming,  you 
know.  I — I  think  I'll  go  to  this  place  you  dreamed 

of.   It  is  superstition,  of  course,  but  er — er 

45 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

March  called  a  maid  to  tend  the  child;  then 
he  summoned  the  men  who  had  been  searching 
through  the  day  and  led  them  on  another  quest. 
This  time  they  found  the  missing  lad.  He  was 
insensible  and  his  leg  was  broken. 

The  next  day  the  doctor  spoke  gravely  of  the 
condition  of  his  patient.  "  I  am  very  much  afraid 
his  condition  is  serious,"  he  said.  "If  he  had 
been  cared  for  at  once  recovery  would  have  been 
quite  certain;  but  he  has  been  lying  there  half- 
stunned  and  without  food,  drink,  or  care  four 
days  and  nights." 

March  did  not  speak;  possessed  by  a  sudden 
thought  he  sought  his  nephew. 

"  Dennis,  child,"  he  said,  "  when  did  you  first 
see  the  place  where  we  found  Perry?  " 

"  The  day  he  left." 

"  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  at  once  what  you 
saw?  Perry's  very  ill  from  lying  there  four 
days." 

"I'm  sorry,"  murmured  Dennis,  "  I — I  thought 
you'd,  you'd " 

"  You  thought  I  should  be  angry?  " 

"  Y-yes,  I  was  afraid." 

He  did  not  know  how  innocently  he  avenged 

himself  and  paid  off  old  scores.   March  was  silent 
46 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

for  a  minute,  then  he  said  in  a  low  voice:    "  It's 
just.     It's  my  own  fault." 

He  stooped  and  took  the  child's  face  gently 
between  his  hands,  kissed  his  forehead  and  went 
out  alone  to  wrestle  with  his  pain  and  anxiety. 


As  this  tale  began  so  it  ends  at  the  pool  in  the 
landslip.  Perry  lay  beside  the  stream  apparently 
none  the  worse  for  his  fall  of  the  year  before. 
Dennis  sitting  cross-legged  beside  the  little  rock 
basin  watched  the  water.  March  was  talking  with 
his  son ;  following  the  direction  of  Perry's  smiling 
eyes  he  saw  Dennis.  Dennis's  pictures  were  less 
frequent  now  and  his  "  stories  "  were  less  marvel- 
lous. The  press  of  outer  interest  which  crowded 
in  was  doing  its  work.  March  looked  at  the  boy 
as  he  rose  and  stood  beside  him  and  laid  his  hand 
on  his  head : 

"  Seeing  pictures?  "  he  asked  with  a  half- 
mocking  laugh.  March's  position  was  a  very 
illogical  one  and  he  was  semi-conscious  of  the 
fact.  The  child  looked  up  and  nodded. 

"  What  nonsense,"  said  March,  "  it's  all  fancy. 
If  there  was  anything  to  see  why  shouldn't  I 
see  it?  " 

47 


The  Bending  of  the  Twig 

"  Come,  father,"  said  Perry  laughing,  "  why 
can't  I  tell  '  Rule  Britannia  '  from  '  God  save 
the  King?  '  " 

"  Nonsense!  I  tell  you  it's  a  rampant  medieval 
superstition  that's  got  hold  of  you.  As  for  Denny 
he's  a  little  donkey." 

But  he  laughed  and  pulled  the  boy's  hair  with 
a  gentle  hand ;  which  seems  to  prove  that  one  is 
not  necessarily  incapable  of  learning  even  after 
one  has  "  come  to  forty  years." 


Note. — This  story  is  founded  on  fact.  That  is  to  say, 
although  it  is  mine  as  regards  characters  and  incidents,  the 
motif,  the  clairvoyance  of  the  child,  is  true.  The  drastic 
methods  which  were  employed  for  the  repression  of  the  gifts 
of  the  luckless  little  seer  are  also  facts,  and  that  is  the 
reason  I  wrote  the  story. 


THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE   SON 

OF   MAN 

Lord  God  of  Glory,  Pow'r  of  Perfect  Light. 

Look  on  Thy  little  children  of  the  wild, 

In  whose  frail  souls  the  Son  of  Man  is  born 

Thine  is  the  pow'r  of  pain  and  anguish,  Lord, 

Thine  is  the  chrysm  of  the  agony, 

The  bitter  wisdom  .born  within  the  soul 

That  knows  the  sorrow  of  sin's  piteous  load. 

Father  in  Heaven,  blessed  be  the  hour 

When  in  the  beast-soul  rises  the  sad  voice 

Of  human  shame,  crying:   "  I  will  arise, 

And  seek  my  Father's  feet,  and  mourn  my  sin." 

Blessed  the  hour  when  the  dread  scourge  of  pain 

Is  gladly  borne  by  some  poor  tortur'd  soul, 

Because  it  sees  its^foulness  before  Thee 

By  the  white  light  of  Christ,  Who  dwells  within 

The  outrag'd  temple  of  humanity. 

THERE  was  wrath  and  distress  in  the  House  of 
the  Cold  Strand  by  reason  of  the  sin  of  Brother 
Gorlois  He  was  the  child  of  the  Holy  House, 
taken  into  the  pious  nurture  of  the  brethren,  from 
the  dead  breast  of  his  murdered  mother,  a  heathen 
woman,  found  by  Brother  Pacificus  lying  dead 
in  the  undergrowth  of  the  great  forest  nigh  the 
House  of  the  Cold  Strand.  The  pious  company 
of  Christian  monks,  who  had  built  their  house  of 
prayer  in  that  land,  baptised  the  babe,  and  reared 
49  D 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

him  by  the  precepts  of  Solomon,  by  the  rule  of 
their  House,  and  by  the  wisdom  which  flowed 
from  their  hearts.  And  when  the  Brother  Gorlois 
was  twelve  years  old  he  entered  his  noviciate,  and 
when  he  was  fifteen  he  took  upon  him  the  vows 
of  a  monk,  namely,  the  vows  of  poverty,  chastity, 
and  obedience.  He  had  little  wit,  and  was  not 
studious;  nor  was  he  called  to  the  way  of  con- 
templation, but  he  was  strong,  and  waxed  mighty 
of  muscle.  As  he  grew  to  manhood  the  good  gift 
of  comeliness  was  bestowed  upon  him  by  the 
Hand  of  God,  and  the  thick  crisp  waves  of  his 
curly  yellow  hair  rose  up  like  billows  around  his 
head. 

He  liked  to  trap  and  fish  for  the  Holy  House, 
but  when  the  glee  of  sport  was  passed  he  was  lazy 
and  loved  to  sleep.  He  gave  the  first  occasion  for 
scandal  during  a  fast  of  twice  forty  days,  wherein 
the  brethren  ate  no  flesh.  This  Brother  Gorlois, 
stealing  forth  on  the  eighth  day,  slew  a  coney, 
and  was  taken  in  the  wood,  having  built  a  fire 
in  order  that  he  might  cook  and  devour  it  to  the 
gratification  of  his  body,  and  the  peril  of  his  soul; 
moreover,  he  lied  concerning  his  sin,  scandalously, 
and  indeed  foolishly,  for  it  was  manifest  to  the 
simplest,  and  denial  was  vain. 
50 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

The  second  scandal  was  when  the  Brother 
Gorlois  was  found  in  the  refectory  drunk  with 
wine;  for  this  offence  he  did  penance,  being 
scourged,  and  sorely  rebuked  by  the  brethren. 
But  the  third  and  most  grievous  scandal  was 
when  he  was  taken  in  the  forest  with  the  swine- 
herd's daughter;  whereupon  the  brethren  placed 
him  in  ward,  whilst  they  debated  whether  or  no 
a  monk  who  had  broken  his  vows  to  the  shame 
of  his  House,  should  not  lie  within  a  narrow  cell, 
the  entrance  whereof  should  be  securely  barred 
by  mortised  stones,  that  soul  and  body  might 
part  slowly  in  the  terrors  of  a  death  by  hunger 
and  by  thirst.  Such  was  the  fate  adjudged  to 
Brother  Gorlois,  who  was  then  but  a  young  man 
of  twenty  years,  and  he  was  brought  forth,  bound, 
to  hear  the  same. 

The  Brother  Gorlois  was,  as  aforesaid,  young 
and  lusty,  comely  and  of  great  stature ;  he  looked 
sullen,  but  he  was  less  fearful  and  less  ashamed 
than  might  have  been  expected.  God  had  granted 
to  him  vigorous  youth,  health,  and  a  person  as 
goodly  to  behold  as  those  He  had  given  to  the 
great  stags  on  the  moor,  and  the  mighty  milk- 
white  bulls  which  crashed  through  the  forest, 
leading  a  drove  of  their  kind;  but  He  in  His 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

Wisdom  had  not  yet  given  to  Brother  Gorlois  the 
blessing  (or  curse)  of  a  lively  power  of  imagery, 
and  a  sensitive  memory. 

Still  he  had  been  taken,  as  he  knew,  in  what 
the  brethren  denounced  as  sin,  and  he  knew  they 
were  so  made  that  they  visited  sin  by  fasting, 
and  by  the  scourge,  to  the  Brother  Gorlois'  great 
dis-ease;  for  he  loved  food,  and  he  esteemed  the 
scourge  to  be  a  needless  discomfort.  Therefore 
he  looked  very  sulky,  and  stood  gazing  upon  his 
feet,  and  wishing  vaguely  that  his  arms  were  free. 

Then  he  who  was  Head  of  the  lonely  little 
House  of  the  Cold  Strand  rose  to  pronounce  the 
doom  of  Brother  Gorlois,  when  the  aged  Brother 
Pacificus  uplifted  his  voice.  It  was  the  Brother 
Pacificus  who  had  found  Brother  Gorlois  a  young 
babe  upon  the  dead  breast  of  the  half-savage 
heathen  woman,  his  mother. 

Brother  Pacificus  was  very  old,  and  a  reputed 
seer;  esteemed  as  a  saint  was  he;  twenty  years 
had  he  travelled  over  Europe  carrying  the  Gospel 
of  the  Christ  among  heathen  people;  founding 
many  a  Holy  House,  but  never  taking  the  Head- 
ship of  any;  thirty  years  lived  he  as  a  hermit, 
supplicating  God  for  the  world ;  ten  years  he  had 
dwelt  at  the  House  of  the  Cold  Strand,  speaking 
52 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

little  and  praying  much ;  but  during  the  last  year 
he  spoke  more  frequently  and  more  freely,  and 
the  Head  of  the  House  of  the  Cold  Strand  con- 
sulted him  reverently  as  his  soul-friend,  what 
though  in  that  House  he  was  his  superior  in 
religion. 

"  It  is  in  my  mind,  holy  father,"  said  Brother 
Pacificus,  "  that  we  have  sinned  greatly  against 
our  Brother  Gorlois,  and  owe  him  amends." 

"  Speak  thy  mind,  my  brother,  therefore,"  said 
he  who  was  the  Head  of  the  House.  "  Make  plain 
to  us  wherein  we  have  sinned,  and  he  shall  live." 

"  My  father,"  said  the  Brother  Pacificus,  "  this, 
our  young  brother,  so  lusty  in  his  youth,  is  not 
bound  by  his  vows,  seeing  that  in  truth  he  took 
them  not  upon  him." 

"  Who  then  took  them,  venerable  brother?  " 

"  Verily,  that  did  we,"  said  Brother  Pacificus; 
"  for  we  knew  their  meaning,  our  Brother  Gorlois 
did  not  so.  He,  obeying  babe-like  those  who 
nurtured  him,  uttered  words  of  which  his  heart 
knew  not  the  meaning.  For  it  is  written  that  once 
a  man  of  God  made  a  religious  house  in  the  wilder- 
ness and  bound  by  vows  Brother  Fox,  binding 
him  to  a  religious  life,  and  to  eat  no  flesh;  the 
which  vow  he  broke,  adding  to  this  offence  the 
53 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

sin  of  theft,  for  so  mightily  desired  he  to  eat  flesh 
that  he  ate  the  leathern  shoe-straps  of  his  superior 
in  religion,  namely,  the  holy  saint;  whereupon 
the  holy  man  rebuked  him  for  conduct  unbefitting 
a  monk,  when  it  was  revealed  to  him  that  no  vow 
can  make  a  religious  of  a  beast  of  the  field;  the 
blame  is  his  who  bindeth  a  little  brother  by  a 
harsh  rule  against  which  the  nature  which  God 
hath  given  constraineth  him.  Wherefore  let  our 
Brother  Gorlois  abide  with  us  in  peace,  doing 
such  tasks  as  his  youth  and  great  thews  and 
sinews  make  very  fitting  for  him;  but  do  not 
bind  him  to  eat  no  flesh,  nor  drink  wine,  nor 
even  forbid  him  to  seek  the  love  of  a  maid,  for 
to  these  things  the  youth's  nature  mightily  con- 
straineth him;  nor  doth  he  perceive  in  any 
measure  the  beauty  of  holiness,  nor  desireth  he 
to  enter  into  the  secrets  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven.  Behold!  he  is  no  monk;  though  his  lips 
spake  vow  on  vow,  God  would  not  register  them 
in  Heaven  as  we  foolish  men  do  on  earth;  this 
Brother  Gorlois  is  but  a  lad,  and  in  his  heart  a 
heathen,  like  the  woman  who  bore  him.  Never- 
theless he  is  the  child  of  our  House.  His  hour  is 
not  yet.  Spare  him,  my  father,  and  let  us  not — 
we  who  follow  Him  who  bade  the  woman  go 
54 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

unhurt  and  sin  no  more — give  our  child  to  a 
cruel  death.  For  we  took  him  in  God's  name, 
and  in  the  Power  of  that  Name  shall  he  dwell 
amongst  us  unhurt  and  forgiven." 

Now  no  other  voice  in  the  Holy  House  would 
have  been  heard  on  behalf  of  Brother  Gorlois 
save  only  that  of  Brother  Pacificus.  But  to  his 
voice  the  brethren  listened  with  heed,  and  now 
his  counsel  prevailed,  and  they  spared  the  Brother 
Gorlois,  and  absolved  him  from  his  vows,  bidding 
him  remain  in  the  House  of  the  Cold  Strand, 
doing  such  work  as  his  youth  and  strength 
rendered  fitting  for  him.  Thus  then  Brother 
Gorlois  was  pardoned  by  the  holy  father  who 
ruled  the  brethren.  This  holy  father  was  a  man 
of  great  zeal,  and  jealous  for  the  fair  repute  of 
the  House,  and  often  he  mourned  to  Brother 
Pacificus  because  the  soul  of  the  House  was 
barren,  and  he  knew  not  by  what  means  the 
brethren  could  make  thereof  a  mightier  power  in 
the  Hand  of  the  Lord.  But  Brother  Pacificus 
said: 

"  The  soul  of  a  Holy  House,  my  father,  is  like 

unto  the  Kingdom  of  God;    it  cometh  not  with 

observation.  It  is  from  the  beginning,  and  to  hold 

this  diligently  in  our  minds  in  all  that  is  possible 

55 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

for  us  to  do  in  this  matter.  Let  us  then  act  as 
our  nature  constraineth  us,  under  the  guidance 
of  the  Lord,  remembering  all  natures  are  rooted 
in  Him,  and  it  may  ofttimes  be  our  duty  to  suffer 
gladly,  as  His  servant,  one  who  sorely  opposes  us; 
now  this  is  hard  for  the  natural  man,  but  the 
Lord  from  Heaven  useth  the  one  and  the  other 
for  His  service  according  to  the  measure  of  their 
gifts,  asking  not  wit  from  him  who  lacketh,  nor 
clerkly  lore  from  the  simple,  nor  the  power  of  the 
spirit  from  him  who  is  yet  a  babe  in  Christ.  Nor 
can  we  expect  to  know  the  subtle  workings  of 
our  brethren's  souls,  and  though  it  be  our  duty 
to  dwell  in  sympathy  with  them  when  we  may, 
yet  ofttimes  it  is  our  duty  sweetly  to  resign  our- 
selves to  dwell  in  ignorance  of  them.  But  the 
soul  of  a  House  of  Prayer  is  born  from  above, 
not  from  below,  and  this,  meseemeth,  is  the 
meaning  of  that  Scripture  which  saith  a  man 
by  taking  thought  can  add  not  a  cubit  to  his 
stature." 

It  was  summer  time  when  the  sin  of  Brother 
Gorlois  was  judged  by  the  brethren;  the  following 
winter  was  very  cold,  and  the  Brother  Pacificus 
grew  feebler.  When  the  spring  came  he  was  very 
infirm ;  he  slept  little,  and  it  grew  a  custom  that 
56 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

a  brother  should  watch  beside  him  to  minister  to 
him  in  the  night.  On  a  moonlit  night  of  May 
Brother  Gorlois  was  bidden  to  keep  vigil  by  the 
old  man's  side.  Brother  Pacificus  slept  lightly 
during  the  first  watch  of  the  night.  Brother 
Gorlois  rose  up  gently  and  looked  from  the  little 
unglazed  casement  upon  the  forest.  It  was  a 
warm  night,  the  glamour  of  the  moon  lay  on  the 
great  silent  glades.  Brother  Gorlois  felt  restless, 
and  upon  him  was  a  desire  to  rove  the  forest.  The 
oaks  were  in  leaf,  the  smell  of  bluebells  filled  the 
air,  the  fierce  life  of  night  and  springtide  was 
pulsing  apace  through  the  dim  sweet  land;  it 
was  a  night  when  all  the  beasts  of  the  forest  did 
roam,  seeking  their  bread  from  God. 

Brother  Gorlois  leaned  out,  and  smelled  the 
night  air  and  the  earth;  then  he  drew  back  and 
sat  by  the  old  monk. 

Something  flew  through  the  casement  and  hit 
Brother  Gorlois  on  his  broad  chest;  it  was  a 
bunch  of  bluebells.  Brother  Gorlois  looked  out 
once  more.  Below  the  window  was  the  swine- 
herd's daughter;  the  night  was  sultry,  and  her 
smock  was  open  by  reason  of  the  heat;  her  skirt 
was  made  of  the  stitched  skins  of  beasts;  about 
her  neck  was  a  garland  of  blue  flowers  of  the  wood, 
57 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

swaying  rope-like  about  her  throat.  When  she 
saw  Brother  Gorlois  she  laughed  loudly  and  fled, 
but  as  she  fled  she  looked  back.  Then  Brother 
Gorlois  leaped  from  the  window.  When  she  heard 
the  beat  of  his  feet  behind  her  she  ran  faster; 
nevertheless,  as  she  ran  she  dragged  the  blue- 
bells from  about  her  throat  and  flung  them  earth- 
wards to  mark  the  way  by  which  she  went.  Soon 
the  thicket  hid  her,  and  Brother  Gorlois,  flying 
in  pursuit,  was  hidden  too. 

A  little  while  after  the  flight  of  Brother  Gorlois, 
the  Brother  Pacificus  stirred. 

"  My  son,"  he  said  faintly,  "  give  me  to  drink, 
I  pray  thee." 

No  one  answered,  and  the  old  man  murmured: 

"  He  is  young,  he  sleeps." 

He  sighed,  for  his  mouth  was  very  parched  and 
dry.  After  a  while  he  said  again : 

"  My  son,  sleepest  thou?    Wake,  I  pray  thee." 

But  no  one  answered,  and  he  said : 

"  My  voice  is  weak,  and  the  sleep  of  youth  is 
heavy.  O  Lord,  Thy  chosen  slept  in  the  hour  of 
Thy  agony;  how  didst  Thou  thirst,  O  Master, 
and  there  was  none  to  succour  Thee,  save  with 
the  bitter  vinegar  and  gall!  " 

After  a  while  the  old  monk's  thirst  grew 
58 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

grievous,  and  he  strove,  slowly  and  tremulously, 
to  raise  his  aged  limbs. 

"It  is  but  a  little  way  to  yonder  jug,"  he 
murmured,  "I  am  a  selfish  old  man;  the  lad 
is  tired  with  toil.  I  will  seek  the  water  for 
myself." 

He  rose  slowly,  groped  a  pace  or  two,  stumbled, 
and  fell  to  the  floor  of  his  cell.  He  lay  there, 
moaning  a  little  now  and  then,  and  shivering. 
Thus  did  he  lie  during  two  hours  of  the  night; 
and  thus  Brother  Gorlois  found  him  when  he 
slunk  back,  just  as  day  broke.  In  great  terror  he 
called  the  brethren,  praying  God  that  the  old 
man  had  not  known  his  absence,  or  at  least  would 
be  speechless  till  the  end.  But  Brother  Pacificus, 
though  all  might  see  his  death  was  near,  recovered 
speech  and  clearness  of  mind,  and  received  the 
last  rites  of  the  Church.  Then  said  he : 

"  My  brethren,  ye  are  weary.  Leave  me  to 
await  the  coming  of  my  Lord  and  Master.  I  shall 
die  this  night  when  midnight  strikes.  Wherefore 
at  that  hour  go  ye  to  the  chapel,  and  speed  my 
soul  with  songs  of  holy  joy;  and  leave  with  me, 
I  pray  you,  Brother  Gorlois." 

Then  they  obeyed,  weeping;  but  the  Head 
said: 

59 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

"  Dare  we  trust  thee,  beloved  brother,  with 
this  youth?  "  and  sternly  he  said  to  Brother 
Gorlois : 

"  Slept  ye  not,  nor  had  left  our  holy  brother 
when  this  sickness  increased  upon  him?  " 

Then  Brother  Gorlois  lied;  and  Brother 
Pacificus  smiled  very  tenderly  upon  him  and 
said: 

"  Nay,  ye  shall  leave  me,  my  father,  with  the 
babe  I  found." 

When  the  brethren  were  gone,  Brother  Pacificus 
said: 

"  Come  near  to  me,  my  child,  and  lift  me  in 
thy  arms,  for  I  breathe  hardly." 

Brother  Gorlois  obeyed,  and  Brother  Pacificus 
said: 

"  Wherefore  left  ye  me,  my  son  and  little 
brother  ?  The  pain  was  sore  as  I  lay  yonder ;  and 
that  ye  might  have  spared  me.  But  in  truth  I 
sinned  in  lack  of  patience ;  nevertheless,  the  thirst 
which  was  upon  me  was  great  when  I  strove  to 
fetch  the  water,  that  I  might  drink  a  little  to  cool 
my  tongue." 

The  old  man  spoke  very  feebly,  a  word  or  two 
and  then  a  long  pause;  but  when  he  had  spoken 

Brother  Gorlois  knew  Brother  Pacificus  had  per- 
60 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

ceived  his  absence.  He  said  no  word,  but  hung 
his  head.  He  perceived  there  was  no  fear  that 
Brother  Pacificus  would  betray  him.  And  yet  he 
hung  his  head;  there  grew  up  about  his  heart  a 
feeling  new  and  strange,  and  he  felt  very  wroth 
with  the  swineherd's  brown  daughter. 

"  See  thy  penance,  child,"  said  Brother  Paci- 
ficus. "  Hold  me  in  thy  arms;  thus  I  breathe 
more  freely." 

Brother  Gorlois  said  nothing,  not  even  when 
the  cramp  in  his  arms  grew  great. 

The  old  man  fell  into  a  stupor;  but  sometimes 
he  wandered  a  little.  He  would  moan  and  say: 

"  My  son — Gorlois — my  son — where  are  thou?  " 

Sometimes  he  would  say : 

"  I  thirst— alone— Thou,  Lord,  wast  left— 

And  Brother  Gorlois,  albeit  dull  of  wit,  saw  he 
was  living  through  the  pain  and  loneliness  of  the 
past  night.  Brother  Gorlois  did  not  ask  the  old 
monk's  pardon;  he  did  not  know  he  wanted  him 
to  forgive;  he  knew  his  heart  felt  heavy;  he 
began  to  wish  the  Head  might  find  out  what  he 
had  done,  and  have  him  flogged ;  and  he  felt  more 
and  more  wroth  with  the  swineherd's  daughter, 
who  was  the  cause  of  his  discomfort. 

In    the   chapel    the   brethren    began  to  sing, 
61 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

Brother  Pacificus  could  not  hear  them.   The  hour 
of  midnight  was  near. 

Dies  irae,  dies  ilia, 
Solvet  saeclum  in  favilla, 
Teste  David  cum  Sybilla." 

Brother  Pacificus  waxed  heavier  in  the  strong 
arms  of  his  "  little  brother;  "  his  breathing  grew 
slower,  and  more  slow. 

Rex  tremendae  majestatis, 
Qui  salvandos  salvas  gratis, 
Salva  me,  fons  pietatis. 

Brother  Pacificus  shuddered  once  with  a  great 
shudder,  and  his  breathing  ceased;  then  he 
breathed  once  more,  opened  his  eyes,  and  smiled. 

"  Jhesu!  "  he  said,  "  Jhesu!  Jhesu!  Jhesu!  " 
Then  he  laughed  softly  and  gladly,  as  a  lover  at 
the  sight  of  his  beloved,  or  as  an  exile  when  he 
sees  again  the  land  he  loves. 

The  hour  was  midnight ;  a  light  like  moonlight 
flickering  upon  blue  steel  flashed  through  the 
room,  and  Brother  Pacificus  died. 

Then  as  Brother  Gorlois  laid  him  down,  and 
slowly  rubbed  his  cramped  arms,  there  flew 
through  the  casement  a  bunch  of  blue  flowers; 
they  smote  him  on  the  chest,  and  dropped  upon 

the  dead  man's  breast. 

62 


The  Mystery  of  the  Son  of  Man 

Brother  Gorlois  gave  a  cry  that  was  like  unto 
a  human  sob  of  pain,  but  liker  still  to  the  cry  of 
an  angry  beast  that  has  been  hurt.  He  leaped 
through  the  unglazed  casement;  in  the  silent 
wood  below  there  was  the  shriek  of  a  woman  in 
a  swiftly  stilled  anguish  of  bodily  fear. 

From  the  chapel,  when  the  day  broke,  the 
weeping  brethren  came.  They  found  Brother 
Pacificus  dead,  and  on  his  breast  a  bunch  of  blue 
sweet-smelling  flowers;  under  the  window  on  the 
dew-drenched  forest  turf,  there  lay  a  half-clad 
girl;  a  bunch  of  blossoms  like  those  on  the  dead 
saint's  breast  was  in  her  stiffened  hand;  there 
was  a  wound  in  her  throat  that  an  arm  nerved 
by  savage  rage  had  given;  in  the  tangle  of  her 
rough  hair  was  the  knife  that  had  killed  her.  It 
was  the  Brother  Gorlois'  hunting  knife;  but  he 
had  fled,  and  the  House  of  the  Cold  Strand  knew 
him  no  more  from  the  hour  when  the  Son  of  Man 
was  born  in  him,  in  the  throes  of  a  first  "  con- 
viction of  sin,"  the  passing  anguish  of  a  first 
remorse. 


THE    EXCELLENT    VERSATILITY 
OF   THE    MINOR    POET 

PETALS  of  wild  cherry  blossom  were  flying  on  a 
soft  rush  of  wind  that  swept  through  the  beech 
wood.  Little  bright  sheathlets  lay,  brown  and 
shining,  at  the  feet  of  the  smooth  silver-green 
boles  of  the  trees.  The  leaves,  not  yet  rid  of  the 
silky  soft  fringes  of  their  babyhood,  fluttered 
like  little  flags,  and  glowed  like  green  flame ;  they 
were  not  yet  thick  enough  to  hide  the  misty  blue 
sky,  laced  with  feathery  cloudlets.  Light  seemed 
to  flow  from  the  little  leaves — the  light  of  life,  the 
life  of  spring-time.  The  "  Fire  of  God  "  was 
aflame  in  the  wood  world ;  a  green  mist  of  colour 
was  aglow  in  the  very  air  that  pulsed  between 
the  beech-tree  boles.  In  every  dell  the  bracken 
sprang  up  straightly,  uncurling  its  brown  heads  to 
spread  abroad  the  branches  of  its  later  summer 
greenery.  The  first  blue-bells  were  there  too, 
covering  the  ground  with  tender  blue  mist,  and 
/filling  the  air  with  an  ecstasy  of  perfume  that 
-  smote  the  senses  with  the  pain  that  attends  the 

inexpressible  and  almost  intangible;   for  the  soul 
64 


in, 


The  Minor  Poet 

of  all  joy,  of  all  sweetness,  whether  of  perfume, 
sight,  or  sound,  is  ever  hidden  away  in  the  heart 
of  things,  whereof  all  that  can  be  smelt,  or  seen, 
or  heard,  does  but  torment  us  with  a  deeper, 
eternally  elusive  longing. 

On  a  bough  a  blue  tit  hung  head  downwards, 
and  beneath  the  bough,  half  hidden  in  a  crisp  bed 
of  last  year's  leaves,  lay  a  child  who  watched  the 
tit  with  half-shut  eyes,  and  shook  with  a  delight 
he  did  not  understand,  which  was  akin  to  pain. 
A  queer,  lonely,  shy  child,  lying  in  a  wood, 
trembling  with  a  force  which  was  trying  to 
express  itself  through  him.  He  was  the  mother- 
less son  of  an  old  country  vicar,  who  took  scarcely 
any  notice  of  him  until  the  boy  was  old  enough 
to  read  the  books  his  father  loved,  who  let  the 
child  "  run  wild  "  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  and 
after. 

Those  who  commented  on  the  matter  said  it 
was  very  bad  for  a  boy  to  have  no  young  com- 
panions, and  to  dream  alone  in  a  wood  all  day. 
This  was  true,  but  circumstances  alter  cases.  The 
training,  or  rather  the  lack  of  any  training  from 
the  world  of  men,  happened  to  be  just  what  this 
particular  child  needed;  this  was  probably  the 
reason  he  was  placed  where  he  was,  to  struggle 

6S  E 


The  Minor  Poet 

through  a  short  life  alone.  People  were  as  shadows 
to  the  boy — shadows  whom  he  greeted  kindly,  to 
whom  he  meekly  submitted  himself  in  much,  for 
he  was  docile  in  most  matters,  partly  because 
there  were  so  few  things  of  the  outer  world  for 
which  this  queer  child  really  cared.  When  the 
outer  things  were  forced  upon  his  notice,  he 
observed  all  manner  of  traits  in  people  which 
others  did  not  see.  But  for  the  most  part  he  did 
not  live  in  the  world  of  men  at  all,  but  in  the  life 
of  the  beech  wood,  and  in  the  life  of  that  which 
the  wood  partly  expressed — a  life  after  which  he 
reached  continually  without  knowing  or  rinding  it. 

He  lay  in  the  withered  leaves  and  quivered 
with  the  thoughts  and  dim  sensations  that  came 
about  him  like  living  presences;  a  power,  not 
his  own,  seemed  to  press  upon  the  child,  till  the 
wood  vanished  from  his  eyes;  it  was  as  though 
the  wide  sky  had  suddenly  stooped  to  the  boy 
and  engulfed  him  in  a  flood  of  quivering,  living 
light. 

Vague  longings,  longings  to  express  somewhat 
that  lurked  within  and  ever  eluded  him,  com- 
passed the  child  about;  until  at  last  the  know- 
ledge stole  upon  him  that  he  could  put  a  shadow 

of  his  thought  into  rhythmic  words;  words  with 
66 


The  Minor  Poet 

a  cadence  that  should  tell  of  brooks  and  whisper- 
ing leaves,  and  the  songs  and  rustling  of  the  birds 
in  the  beech  wood. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  father  saw 
that  his  child  was  not  as  other  children;  when 
he  saw  it  he  gave  the  boy  no  less  liberty,  but  he 
bestowed  upon  him  freely  such  knowledge  as  was 
his,  and  let  him  learn  from  the  poets  of  past 
and  present  the  power  that  lies  in  deftly  wielded 
words. 

So  this  boy,  Fletewode  Garth,  lived  in  the 
quiet  old  vicarage  house,  surrounded  by  the  beech 
woods  and  the  meadows,  and  dreamed,  and  wrote, 
and  read  such  books  as  his  father  possessed,  which 
were  less  numerous  than  well  chosen.  His  father, 
the  gentlest,  simplest,  most  unworldly  of  men, 
never  speculated  as  to  his  boy's  future.  Nor  did 
the  lad  himself  dream,  as  yet,  of  giving  his  thoughts 
to  the  world;  of  fame  to  be  or  money  making  he 
never  thought  at  all. 

The  day  came  (it  was  when  Fletewode  was 
twenty  years  old)  that  the  mild  old  vicar,  having 
finished  his  appointed  course  as  pastor  of  Beechen- 
field,  sat  down  peacefully  to  smoke  and  doze  under 
the  shade  of  a  trellised  Crimson  Rambler  in  the 

vicarage  garden,  and  there  he  fell  asleep  and  never 
67 


The  Minor  Poet 

woke  up  again.  Then  it  was  found  that  save  for 
the  sum  of  £100  in  the  Bank,  his  son  was  left 
penniless;  very  well  read  in  English  literature, 
with  much  delicacy  of  taste  in  art  and  poetry, 
with  such  classical  attainments  as  the  old  vicar 
had  himself  possessed,  and  with  no  other  qualifi- 
cations for  making  his  way  in  the  world — save 
genius.  So  that  it  is  obvious  he  ran  a  very  good 
chance  of  starving. 

His  father's  cousin,  a  prosperous  man  of  busi- 
ness, desired  to  do  well  by  him.  He  offered  to 
obtain  for  him  a  clerkship  in  the  city.  Fletewode 
thanked  him;  then  he  pointed  out  that  he  was 
very  unbusinesslike,  that  arithmetic  was  not  his 
strong  point,  in  fact  he  was  in  the  habit,  when 
necessity  arose,  of  adding  up  on  his  fingers;  also 
that  he  wrote  a  very  unclerkly  hand.  Moreover, 
he  said:  "  I  want  to  write  about  the  things  of 
which  I  think,  and  I  believe  that  is  the  only  thing 
I  can  really  do  well." 

His  relative  regarded  him  as  a  fool,  and  did 
not  take  the  trouble  to  hide  the  fact.  Fletewode 
was  quite  unruffled  by  this,  which  annoyed  his 
kinsman  still  more.  There  is  nothing  to  be  done 
with  a  person  who  does  not  mind  what  you  think 

of,  or  say  to,  him,  and  it  makes  you  appear  as 
68 


The  Minor  Poet 

though  you  were  of  little  account  in  his  eyes. 
Fletewode's  relative  was  unpleasantly  conscious 
of  this,  nevertheless  he  tried  again  to  rouse  the 
impracticable  youth  to  a  sense  of  realities;  he 
asked  him  how  he  proposed  to  live.  Fletewode 
replied  that  he  possessed  £100;  he  supposed  he 
could  live  on  that  for  some  time;  perhaps  he 
should  earn  money  by  the  things  he  wrote;  he 
had  not  considered  the  matter  deeply,  and,  after 
all,  money  was  of  secondary  importance.  To 
speak  disrespectfully  of  other  people's  God's  is 
unjustifiable ;  Fletewode's  relative,  very  properly, 
cursed  him  in  the  names  of  Worldly  Wisdom,  and 
Business  and  Commonsense;  also  he  said  he 
washed  his  hands  of  him,  when  he  was  starving 
in  the  gutter  he  would  come  to  his  senses.  Flete- 
wode smiled  like  one  who  is  occupied  with  more 
important  questions,  but  lends  a  kindly  ear  to 
childlike  babblings;  then  he  went  out  to  sit  under 
the  Crimson  Rambler,  where  his  father  died.  The 
crimson  petals  lay  thickly  on  the  walk,  and  in  a 
crook  of  the  thorny  boughs  a  flycatcher  was 
feeding  a  youthful  family. 

A  week  later  Fletewode  left  the  vicarage,  and 
the  roses,  the  beech  wood  and  the  birds,  and  went 

to  London  with  a  sheaf  of  manuscripts  and  a  few 
69 


The  Minor  Poet 

books.  At  the  end  of  a  year  he  had  written  a 
great  deal,  but  no  one  heeded  him.  Who  was  to 
be  expected  to  turn  aside  from  the  press  of  life 
to  see  whether  this  shabbily  dressed  young  man, 
who  couched  all  manner  of  wild,  mystical  thoughts 
of  God  and  humanity  and  nature  in  melodious 
verse,  that  made  one  think  of  the  murmur  of  the 
wind  through  a  perfumed  wood  on  a  June  night 
— who  was  to  take  much  trouble,  I  say,  to  see 
whether  there  was  any  truth  in  the  words,  or 
genius  in  the  soul,  of  such  a  country  lad  as  this  ? 

At  the  end  of  a  year  the  £100  was  nearly  gone ; 
not  that  Fletewode  had  recklessly  spent  the  whole 
of  this  enormous  sum  on  himself,  but  he  found 
(it  is  not  an  unusual  experience)  many  people  in 
the  not  too  magnificent  street  where  he  rented  a 
room  who  were  poorer  than  he;  these  people 
looked  upon  him  as  a  man  of  fortune,  and  they 
explained  to  him  the  duty  of  the  rich  towards 
the  poor. 

On  a  day  in  spring  Fletewode  Garth  sat  in  his 
room  and  shivered  with  nervousness  and  hunger, 
while  he  faced  the  fact  that  he  had  but  three 
shillings  left. 

Soon  he  would  not  be  able  to  buy  ink  and 

paper;   his  work  was  beginning  to  suffer  a  little 
70 


The  Minor  Poet 

by  reason  of  lack  of  food,  and  anxiety.  It  was 
for  that  reason  the  sheet  of  paper  on  the  table 
before  him  was  angrily  torn  across,  and  stained, 
moreover,  with  tears.  He  could  not  think;  the 
halting  of  his  brain,  the  blunting  of  his  perceptions 
were  the  keenest  tortures  life  could  bring  a  soul 
like  Fletewode  Garth.  He  had  altered  during  his 
year  of  town  life ;  the  child-look,  which  had  lingered 
in  his  eyes  despite  his  twenty  years,  was  gone. 
He  was  no  longer  semi-unconscious  of  his  sur- 
roundings and  steeped  in  dreams  of  the  things 
beyond.  He  was  nervously,  irritably,  bitterly 
conscious  of  his  world.  Life — the  seamy  side  of 
it — had  made  him  look  on  the  things  men  call 
the  realities  of  existence ;  the  ugliest,  most  sordid, 
most  evil  side  of  life.  He  had  looked  to  some 
purpose,  looked  till  his  heart  was  sickened,  till 
his  heart  was  weary  with  pain  and  hopelessness. 
Looked  till  the  pressure  of  the  sordid-seeming 
struggle  without,  and  the  strong  constraining 
power  of  that  mystic  something  within,  a  power 
which  was  laid  on  him  despite  himself,  sometimes 
strained  his  nerves  to  breaking  point. 

Now,  too,  a  dread  seized  him.  The  sight  of  the 
world's  sorrow  had  made  him  tremblingly  anxious 
that  his  human  comrades  should  hear  him  speak 


The  Minor  Poet 

of  the  fairer  things;  of  that  which  he  felt  to  be 
true,  which  once  had  been  the  whole  of  life  for 
him.  For  the  first  time  he  desired  to  comfort  and 
to  succour,  and  though  he  knew  it  not,  this  long- 
ing gave  to  his  work  the  last  touch  it  needed — 
the  human  touch,  the  power  of  speech  from  heart 
to  heart. 

Suppose,  he  thought,  he  died  of  poverty,  and 
all  he  had  written  was  swept  away  unread.  Flete- 
wode  actually  believed  that  it  is  possible  to  sweep 
out  of  existence,  irrevocably  and  for  all  time,  a 
thing  which  the  world  needs,  or  will  need.  There- 
fore he  grieved;  he  had  no  personal  ambitions, 
he  did  not  mind  obscurity  or  death,  nor  did  he 
greatly  mind  suffering;  but  now,  at  last,  he 
wished  people  to  have  the  happiness  that  had 
vanished  from  his  own  life. 

He  got  up  with  a  sigh,  took  his  hat,  and  went 
out.  He  was  going  to  seek  a  possible  patron. 
John  Chalmers,  a  man  whom  he  once  helped  with 
some  of  the  vanished  £100,  told  him  "  to  go  and  see 
Scottie;  Scottie  might  put  something  in  his  way." 

John  Chalmers  was  a  clever  man,  who  would 
have  been  a  successful  artist,  save  for  drink.  He 
drew  rather  coarse  cartoons  for  inferior  comic 

papers. 

72 


The  Minor  Poet 

"  Scottie,"  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  prosperous 
person.  He  had  a  talent  for  inventing  jingling 
refrains  which  "  caught  on  "  with  the  public;  his 
comic  songs,  "  patriotic  "  songs,  and  dance  music 
were  whistled  by  every  street  boy,  and  ground 
out  by  every  piano  organ  in  London. 

Fletewode  Garth  reached  the  house  of  this 
prosperous  man;  it  was  a  little  house  in  the 
suburbs,  with  a  lilac  tree  bursting  into  bloom  in 
the  small  front  garden.  Mr.  Scottie  had  lunched 
an  hour  before  his  visitor's  arrival;  but,  being 
conscienceless  in  such  matters,  he  lied  and  said 
he  was  famished,  and  luncheon  was  late.  This 
he  did  because  he  knew  Fletewode  Garth  was 
hungry;  for,  before  he  and  the  public  had  dis- 
covered his  gift  for  tunes,  he  was  a  struggling 
provincial  actor,  stranded  in  South  Wales  by  a 
decamping  manager;  wherefore  he  had  tramped 
to  the  nearest  large  town,  went  forty-eight  hours 
without  food,  and  slept  under  a  hayrick  in  a 
pelting  thunderstorm ;  this  invaluable  experience 
caused  him  to  feel  for  Fletewode,  and  also  caused 
him  to  perceive  the  signs  of  famine,  and  shape  his 
lie  in  accordance  with  his  observations.  Now  if 
some  persons  had  refrained  from  that  lie,  it  would 
have  indicated  in  them  a  high  regard  for  truth; 
73 


The  Minor  Poet 

but  if  Mr.  Scottie  had  refrained  from  it,  it  would 
have  argued  lack  of  sympathy  rather  than 
morality;  for  he  lied  fairly  often,  and  believed 
it  to  be  necessary;  therefore  his  untruthfulness 
to  Fletewode  was  an  act  of  unmixed  virtue. 

After  luncheon  he  told  his  guest  he  wanted 
verses — up-to-date  verses — to  which  he  could 
attach  tunes;  his  old  friend  Farquharson,  who 
used  to  write  them  for  him,  was  dead;  would 
Fletewode  try  to  fill  his  place.  It  was  pure  phil- 
anthropy on  the  part  of  this  patron  of  poetry; 
he  could  get  countless  jingles  of  the  kind  he 
needed ;  but  he  was  sorry  for  the  lad,  whose  white 
face,  hollow  eyes,  and  air  of  nervous  strain,  had 
touched  him. 

Fletewode  said  he  would  try.  He  went  home, 
and  thought  for  a  few  minutes.  Then  he  drew 
from  his  memory  a  quaint  country  tale  from  his 
old  home;  he  cast  it  into  the  form  of  a  ballad. 
It  was  stirring  enough;  a  story  of  love  and 
heroism,  of  those  elemental  passions  of  the  race 
which  are  always  young,  always  able  to  grip  the 
imagination.  The  next  day  he  took  it  to  his 
patron,  who  shook  his  head. 

"  My  dear  chap,"  said  he  amiably,  "  this  won't 
do.  I  want  something  which  will  go  down  at  the 
74 


The  Minor  Poet 

Rag  Bag.  Never  been  to  the  Rag  Bag  ?  Great 
Scott!  How  on  earth  can  you  write  unless  you 
know  the  world?  I'll  give  you  a  pass.  You  go 
and  see  for  yourself  the  kind  of  thing  I  want." 

Fletewode  went  to  the  Rag  Bag  ;  at  first  the 
foolish  vulgarity  of  the  songs,  the  dull,  sordid 
atmosphere  of  the  place,  wearied  him.  Then  his 
mind,  an  ever-plastic  machine,  adapted  itself  a 
little ;  he  began  to  take  a  sort  of  amused  pleasure 
in  learning  the  "  trick  of  the  thing."  His  clever- 
ness began  to  prompt  him;  to  show  him  how 
easily  he  could  write  rhymes  much  more  pointed, 
much  more  witty,  and  considerably  more  harmful, 
than  the  majority  of  these  coarse,  imbecile  jingles; 
his  genius,  which  was  the  power  beyond,  held  his 
mind  back,  and  said:  "  Keep  these  powers  holy 
for  me." 

Next  day  he  went  to  see  Scottie,  and  told  him 
he  did  not  care  to  do  it. 

"  Why  not?  "  said  his  patron,  a  little  piqued. 

"  I  don't  care  to  wade  in  the  gutter  mud,"  said 
Fletewode  irritably,  and  indeed,  very  rudely  and 
ungratefully;  but  he  was  over-strung  and  tor- 
mented by  various  sections  of  his  mental  and 
emotional  make-up  pulling  at  him  at  once,  and 
each  in  a  different  direction. 
75 


The  Minor  Poet 

"  What  bosh,"  said  the  other.  "  Gutter  mud! 
Gutter  mud  be  hanged !  The  people  want  it.  Old 
Farquharson  was  as  decent  a  fellow  as  ever 
breathed.  You  think  the  poor  old  chap  has  gone 
below,  I  suppose,  because  he  wrote  these  things 
to  keep  his  missus  and  kids  out  of  the  workhouse  ? 
Well!  Of  all  the  beastly  cant " 

"  No,  no,  I  don't  mean  that.  It  was  all  right 
for  him." 

"  If  you  think  you're  a  better  fellow  than  old 
Farquharson  was,  my  young  friend,  you're  jolly 
well  mistaken,"  said  the  other,  strumming  ex- 
cruciatingly on  the  piano,  for  he  was  growing 
annoyed. 

"  I  never  said  I  was  better.  I  never  think,  or 
care  either,  whether  I  am  good,  bad,  or  indifferent. 
Can't  you  see  how  hideously  ugly  these  songs 
are?  Jingling  tunes  and  Bank  Holiday  verses! 
They're  like  the  smell  of  withered  cabbages  and 
naphtha  lamps." 

This  was  not  very  courteous  to  the  kindly 
composer  of  the  said  tunes. 

"  Oh,  well,"  said  he,  rather  sharply,  "  as  you 
please.  Er — I'm  rather  busy,  Mr.  Garth." 

"  Oh,   I  beg  your  pardon,"   said  Fletewode, 

starting  and  colouring.     "I'm  afraid  I've  been 
76 


The  Minor  Poet 

very  rude.  I'm  sorry.  Good  morning,  and — 
thank  you." 

That  evening  he  sat  alone  as  usual,  and  tried 
to  write  his  thoughts.  He  was  cold  and  tired  and 
half-starved.  There  was  only  a  shilling  left.  He 
had  written  a  sonnet,  perhaps  one  of  the  most 
difficult  forms  of  poetry,  needing  the  greatest 
perfection  of  execution.  He  read  it,  sitting  near 
the  window,  where  a  streak  of  the  dying  sunlight 
could  fall  on  his  numbed  frame.  The  lines  halted, 
they  did  not  even  scan ;  the  thoughts  were  feeble, 
confused.  His  work  was  bad;  it  was  fatally, 
irredeemably  bad.  He  crushed  the  paper  in  his 
hands,  fell  on  his  knees  on  the  floor,  and  rested 
his  head  on  the  seat  of  his  one  wooden  chair. 
There  are  some  agonies  of  the  soul  into  which  it 
is  sacrilege  to  pry;  this  was  one  of  them;  we  will 
not  try  to  gauge  it. 

At  last  Fletewode  stood  up,  went  out,  spent 
his  last  shilling  on  a  meal,  and  came  back  penni- 
less. That  was  no  matter,  to-morrow  Scottie 
would  give  him  five,  perhaps  ten  shillings. 

He  sat  at  the  table  and  wrote;  as  he  wrote  he 

became  absorbed  in  his  work,  he  found  himself 

laughing  over  it.   When  it  was  finished  he  read  it 

through,  he  dropped  it  on  the  table,  rested  his 

77 


The  Minor  Poet 

head  upon  it  and  cried  like  a  child.  He  had  sold 
his  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  and  his  life 
died  within  him  for  very  shame.  The  dawn  found 
him  asleep  in  his  chair,  his  head  still  resting  upon 
the  paper. 

The  next  day  he  sought  his  patron,  apologised 
for  his  folly,  was  easily  forgiven  by  the  most 
placable  and  kindly  of  slip-knot-principled  men, 
and  tendered  his  verses.  The  amiable  Scottie 
took  them,  read,  and  chuckled  over  them  appre- 
ciatively. 

"  You  jolly  humbug!  "  he  said  with  genuine 
admiration.  "  And  you  got  a  pass  for  the  Rag 
Bag  out  of  me  to  give  you  a  tip  I  " 

"  Will  they  do — these  verses?  " 

"  Rather,"  still  chuckling.  "I'll  give  you  ten 
shillings  for  them — yes — I  don't  mind  giving  you 
ten  shillings.  They're  very  smart.  This  is  your 
real  line,  you  see;  you'll  get  on  now  like  a  house 
on  fire." 

"  Give  them  to  me.  I'll  polish  them.  They're 
in  the  rough.  I  wrote  them  quickly." 

"  They'll  do." 

"  Give  them  back,  I  tell  you,"  said  Fletewode 
irritably.  "  They  might  have  been  raked  out  of 
the  Thames  mud;  but,  even  so,  I  won't  let  them 
78 


The  Minor  Poet 

go  like  that.  I'll  polish  them.  You  shall  have 
them  to-morrow." 

Scottie  handed  him  the  verses  and  a  ten-shilling 
piece.  Fletewode  went  home  to  "  polish  "  his 
production. 

He  spread  the  verses  out  before  him.  From  his 
window  he  could  see  stacks  of  chimney  pots,  their 
crudeness  of  colour  mellowed  by  the  picturesque- 
ness  of  dirt  lit  by  the  benign  influence  of  May 
sunshine.  Through  the  open  window  floated  the 
fluty  call  of  a  caged  thrush,  whose  cage  hung  over 
a  great  heap  of  wallflowers  on  the  stall  of  a 
greengrocer's  shop. 

Fletewode  listened  awhile,  picked  up  the  verses, 
dropped  them,  half  raised  his  hands  to  his  head, 
let  them  fall,  and  sat  still.  His  limbs  grew  numb 
and  heavy,  then  they  vanished  from  his  con- 
sciousness; all  his  life  seemed  to  be  focussed  to 
one  point,  with  a  great  eagerness  and  yearning, 
for  what  he  knew  not. 

The  room  faded  from  his  sight.  Petals  of  wild 
cherry  blossom,  like  faery  cups  fashioned  from 
snowflakes,  were  flying  through  the  air ;  the  green 
of  the  beeches  was  like  living  flame;  the  wood 
was  full  of  keen  strong  life.  The  birds  were  build- 
ing ;  a  wren  flew  by  with  thistledown  in  her  beak ; 
79 


The  Minor  Poet 

down  by  the  little  stream  where  marsh  marigolds 
and  water  forget-me-nots  grew,  a  kingfisher  was 
flashing  by;  a  blackbird  was  splashing  and  bath- 
ing in  the  shallows;  over  the  cowslip-spangled 
meadow  beyond,  the  rooks  were  flying,  and  the 
sheep  bells'  clang  blended  with  their  sober  calling. 

But  there  was  a  keener,  swifter  life  in  the  wood 
than  that  of  opening  leaf  and  building  bird.  He 
had  always  felt  its  throbbing,  but  now  it  waxed 
perceptible  to  sight;  it  flowed  like  living  light 
through  the  boles  of  the  trees;  they  seemed  to 
grow  translucent;  it  thrilled  in  the  air;  through 
the  shining  vistas  of  the  beechen  woods,  the  gods 
and  dryads  of  old  legends  came  trooping;  and 
the  elfin  peoples  of  the  flowers  and  air,  of  the 
water  and  the  moss-decked  rock,  made  good 
sport  in  the  flitting  lights  and  shadows. 

He  cast  himself,  so  it  seemed,  in  the  old  hollow 
filled  with  the  dead  crisp  beech  leaves ;  their  faint 
pungent  smell  and  the  delicate  odour  of  the  open- 
ing leaves  were  all  about  him  in  this  strange  old- 
new  world.  About  him  a  presence  wove  itself; 
an  unreal,  most-real,  compelling  power,  without 
him  and  within.  He  felt  the  pulsing  of  a  stronger 
life  smite  upon  his.  And  then,  even  as  when  he 

was  a  child,  the  inner  and  the  outer  world  alike 
80 


The  Minor  Poet 

flowed  away  from  him,  the  great  sky  seemed  to 
stoop  to  him  in  a  blinding  flood  of  living  light 
and  wrap  him  round,  and  "  there  was  neither 
speech  nor  language,"  only  light — light — light — 
and  again  more  light  and  keener  life. 

The  next  day  Mr.  Scottie  received  a  note  which 
was  left  at  his  door.  Out  of  it  dropped  a  ten- 
shilling  piece.  On  a  sheet  of  paper  was  written : 

"  I  can't  do  it,  I've  torn  them  up.  To  every 
man  his  work  and  his  line,  this  isn't  mine.  I  must 
do  the  work  they  mean  me  to  do.  If  you  say: 
'  Who  are  they?  '  I  do  not  know.  If  through 
some  fault  of  mine,  or  of  the  world's,  I  fail  to  do 
as  I  am  meant  to  do,  then  let  me  go.  There's  no 
point  in  a  man's  keeping  his  body  alive  by  making 
his  brain  grind  out  work  for  which  it  wasn't  built. 
Better  work  with  one's  hands  than  that,  till  the 
hour  strikes.  That  is  what  I  shall  try  now,  and 
wait  results." 

Mr.  Scottie  was  greatly  concerned,  because  his 
protig&  had,  as  he  phrased  it,  "  gone  dotty,"  and, 
being  as  kindly  a  creature  as  ever  pursued  the 
tasks  appointed  for  him  by  his  past,  he  took  pains 
to  find  Fletewode.  But  Fletewode  and  his  MSS. 

were  gone. 

81  F 


The  Minor  Poet 

A  week  later  the  gardener  of  a  well-to-do 
literary  man,  a  minor  poet,  received  a  shock. 
Within  his  master's  grounds  was  a  little  clump 
of  beech  trees;  they  grew  far  away  from  Flete- 
wode's  old  home,  but  they  were  fine  trees,  all 
bravely  decked  in  their  spring  green,  and  at  their 
feet  grew  bluebells.  The  gardener  found  a  dead 
man  lying  face  downwards  in  a  bluebell  patch, 
and  beside  him  was  a  great  bundle  of  papers  tied 
up  in  a  scarlet  and  white  handkerchief.  The 
gardener  gave  the  alarm;  he  carried  the  bundle 
to  his  master,  and  the  dead  man  was  laid  in  the 
harness  room  in  the  stables.  There  was  no  clue 
at  all  as  to  the  identity  of  the  man;  the  doctor 
discovered  he  had  died  of  heart  failure.  The 
minor  poet  looked  through  the  papers;  he  said 
at  the  inquest  there  was  no  clue  in  the  bundle 
as  to  who  the  man  was,  there  were  only  a  few 
unimportant  documents;  he  would  pay  the 
expenses  of  the  poor  young  fellow's  funeral. 

Now  the  minor  poet  was  an  ambitious  man, 
well  known  in  the  literary  world.  His  ambitions 
were  larger  than  his  power  of  performance.  He 
was  well  known  among  men  of  letters  as  a  very 
good  critic  of  other  people's  work.  The  day  of 

the  funeral  he  sat  alone  and  trembled  in  the 
82 


The  Minor  Poet 

throes  of  temptation.  He  did  not  understand  the 
subtle  mystic  thought  of  the  poems  in  the  bundle, 
but  he  saw  their  marvellous  beauty  of  expression. 
He  appreciated  keenly  the  lovely  lilt  and  melody 
of  the  lines  which  seemed  to  ring  out  from  the 
heart  of  a  fairy  haunted  wood.  The  minor  poet 
was  not  a  very  righteous  man.  Three  beautiful 
little  books  emanated  from  his  pen  point,  they 
were  finally  bound  in  white  vellum  and  tied 
chastely  with  blue  ribbons.  Those  books  were 
widely  read.  The  critics  greatly  praised  the 
versatility  of  the  minor  poet,  who  had  never 
written  anything  of  that  kind  before;  also  they 
warned  him — friendly-wise — against  a  tendency 
to  mysticism,  which  ever  saps  the  judgment  and 
emasculates  the  intellect.  The  minor  poet  said  he 
would  never  fall  again  into  that  snare,  and  indeed 
he  never  did  so.  The  thoughts  enshrined  within 
those  poems  struck  strongly  on  the  consciousness 
of  four  readers  only.  One  was  a  foreign  writer 
of  romance,  the  second  was  a  great  preacher, 
the  third  a  musician,  and  the  fourth  a  man  of 
science  to  whom  the  world  harkened  when  he 
spake.  And  the  thought  of  these  four  men,  and 
through  them  the  thought  of  the  world,  was 
coloured  for  all  time  to  come  by  the  work  of  the 


The  Minor  Poet 

minor  poet;  men  who  had  not  heeded  that  of 
Fletewode  Garth,  heard  his  voice  gladly.  Thus 
the  wheel  that  none  can  stay  rolled  on,  and  the 
world,  through  the  heart  failure  of  Fletewode, 
and  the  ambition  of  an  unrighteous  man,  received 
the  message  which  it  would  not  receive  by  other 
means.  For  the  hour  had  struck  upon  the  clock 
of  time  when  it  was  fit  that  it  should  hear,  there- 
fore its  ears  were  opened. 

But  the  problem  for  the  wise  is  this:  When 
sheaves  are  garnered  what  shall  be  the  minor 
poet's  share  in  the  reaping? 


"THE   TREE   OF   BEAUTY" 

"  THAT,"  said  the  playwright,  "  is  a  beautiful 
story.  I  suppose  every  one  who  reads  it  will 
think  so;  but  I  am  not  sure  that  more  than  one 
in  a  million  will  guess  a  tithe  of  what  it  means. 
Frankly,  I  know  I  don't.  I  daresay  even  the 
writer  himself  didn't  know  all  that  it  suggests." 

The  book  was  The  Light  Invisible,  and  the  story 
was  "  Consolatrix  Afflictorum." 

"  Do  you  agree  with  me?  "  said  the  playwright 
after  a  pause,  in  which  the  only  sound  heard  was 
the  wind  and  the  drumming  of  the  waves  on  the 
rocks.  Since  he  received  no  answer  he  looked  at 
his  companion,  a  man  whom  he  believed  he  knew 
very  well;  when  he  looked  at  him  he  knew  his 
own  folly,  and  was  silent. 

Presently  the  man  said : 

"  Do  you  like  stories?    Shall  I  tell  you  one?  " 

"  Is  it  true?  " 

"  Naturally.  How  could  it  be  otherwise?  Do 
you  think  I  can  create  out  of  nothingness?  The 
story  in  itself  must  be  true,  if  I  could  understand 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

it.  But  I  shall  have  to  grope  after  it,  and  trans- 
late it  for  you ;  and  I  shall  do  it  badly,  no  doubt. 
Still— shall  I  tell  it?" 

"  Do,"  said  the  playwright.  Whereupon  the 
man  began  as  follows : 

"  Years  ago,  perhaps  a  couple  of  centuries  or 
so,  there  was  a  village  in  the  north  of  England, 
which  remains  little  altered  to  this  day.  It  has 
never  been  touched  by  that  change  in  the  method 
of  viewing  truth  which  some  call  the  Reformation, 
and  others  name  after  a  different  fashion.  This 
was  partly  because  it  is  an  isolated  moorland 
village;  partly  because  it  was,  and  is,  owned  by 
a  family  whose  representative  at  that  time  was 
not  only  a  very  rich  and  influential  man,  but 
also  of  the  type  with  whom  other  men,  and  even 
Church  and  State,  do  not  very  readily  interfere. 
He  was  grave  and  discreet,  sober  of  speech  and 
very  devout,  and  he  ruled  his  village  with  a  most 
benevolent  despotism.  He  was  especially  filled 
with  devotion  for  the  Virgin  Mother,  "  the 
blossoming  Tree,  the  Mother  of  Christ,"  in  whose 
honour  he  had  built  a  small  but  most  beautiful 
chapel  in  his  grounds;  here  the  rites  celebrated 

were  of  the  highest  perfection  of  reverent  elabora- 
86 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

tion,  and  here  the  devout  builder  retired  daily 
for  prayer  and  meditation. 

"  One  day  as  he  came  from  prayer  his  servants 
brought  him  a  vagabond  gipsy  lad  who  had  been 
selling  songs  in  the  village  or  offering  them  in 
exchange  for  food.  This  outcast  was  very  little 
past  his  boyhood;  his  garments  were  worn,  and 
faded  with  sun  and  rain,  his  feet  were  bare,  and 
in  his  cap  was  fastened  a  bough  stolen  from  a 
blossoming  fruit  tree. 

"  At  that  time  the  once  persecuted  had  become 
the  persecutors;  coarse,  bitter,  and  profane  songs 
were  written,  and  sold  to  be  sung  in  taverns  and 
at  country  fairs,  which  mocked  at  things  which 
were  by  many  people  justly  held  sacred.  Among 
this  stroller's  songs  were  two  which  spoke  pro- 
fanely of  Her  whom  the  king  of  the  little  moor- 
land village  reverenced.  When  therefore  he  read 
them  he  became  very  angry;  he  bade  that  the 
songs — one  and  all — should  be  destroyed ;  he  told 
his  servants  that  the  gipsy  should  be  whipped, 
set  in  the  stocks,  and  finally  pelted  from  the  place 
after  being  ducked  in  the  pond  which  was  on  the 
village  green.  Then  the  lad  begged  for  mercy; 
he  pleaded  that  he  could  not  read,  that  he  knew 
no  difference  between  faith  and  faith,  but  only 
8? 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

the  crafts  of  the  wood  and  the  lore  of  his  people. 
He  bought  and  sold  in  ignorance,  partly  because 
he  must  eat,  but  chiefly  because  he  wished  to  buy 
a  string  of  red  beads  for  his  sweetheart,  which  he 
had  promised  her,  because  she  desired  to  hang 
them  round  her  throat. 

"  But  the  devout  man,  being  wounded  by  the 
insults  to  his  faith,  for  the  verses  were  both  coarse 
and  flippant,  would  not  listen.  The  lad  was 
punished;  his  songs  were  destroyed;  and  at  the 
time  of  sunset  he  fled,  followed  by  the  hoots  of 
the  villagers,  bruised,  bleeding,  breathless,  and 
half  drowned. 

"  Now  a  year  later  his  judge  was  riding,  at 
nightfall,  through  a  strange  district  of  the  south, 
whither  he  had  come  on  business.  He  met  a  sober 
man  in  the  dress  of  a  preacher,  and  rode  with  him 
because  the  hour  was  late  and  the  roads  danger- 
ous because  of  highwaymen.  After  a  while  they 
began  to  talk  of  grave  matters  touching  their 
faith,  and  the  salvation  of  their  souls.  Thus  it 
happened  that  very  soon  they  quarrelled,  and 
well  nigh  came  to  reviling  each  other,  in  speech 
as  well  as  in  thought,  the  one  for  a  blasphemous 
idolater,  the  other  for  a  vile  heretical  outcast 

from  the  faith.    At  last  they  found  that,  in  the 
88 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

heat  of  argument,  they  had  missed  the  way,  and 
were  on  a  swampy  bridle  path  in  the  depths  of  a 
misty  oak  wood. 

"  Then  they  called  a  truce,  and  reflected  what 
they  should  do;  as  they  considered  thus  they 
heard  one  coming  through  the  wood  who  whistled. 
Soon  he  drew  near;  it  was  a  young  man,  little 
more  than  a  boy;  as  he  came  nearer  he  began  to 
hoot  like  an  owl,  and  the  owls  in  the  wood  called 
back  to  him.  When  he  was  quite  near  and  saw 
the  faces  of  the  riders  he  seemed  as  though  he 
would  fly;  then  he  pulled  his  cap  from  his  head, 
and  came  towards  them,  pleading  that  he  was 
doing  no  ill.  The  ruler  of  the  northern  village 
saw  he  was  the  lad  whom  he  had  caused  to  be 
punished.  He  saw,  moreover,  that  the  gipsy 
knew  him ;  therefore  he  told  him  very  sternly  that 
if,  in  revenge  for  a  well-merited  punishment,  he 
played  them  evil  tricks  and  directed  them  wrongly 
he  should  most  bitterly  repent  it.  But  when  the 
gipsy  raised  his  eyes  to  his  and  asked  simply: 

"  '  Why  should  I  lie  to  you,  sir,  about  the 
way?  '  he  felt  ashamed  and  was  silent.  Then  the 
preacher  asked  if  there  was  any  house  at  hand 
where  they  might  purchase  food  and  lodging. 
The  gipsy  answered: 

89 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

"  '  Good  gentlemen,  there  is  a  farm  a  mile 
hence  where  this  morning  the  farmer  set  his  dog 
at  me,  thinking  I  would  rob  his  hen-roost;  when 
the  dog  did  not  bite  me  he  kicked  him.  But  he 
will  gladly  receive  two  worthy  gentlemen  with 
purses.  Shall  I  guide  you  ?  ' 

' '  Guide  us/  said  the  preacher,  '  and  we  will 
pay  you. '  So  the  boy  went  before  them  whistling. 
He  was  a  wonderful  whistler,  and  he  seemed  to 
have  bat's  eyes  that  could  see  in  the  dark. 

"  Presently  the  man  who  had  so  severely  con- 
demned him  called  to  him. 

" '  Come  here,'  he  said,  '  and  walk  at  my 
horse's  head.' 

"  The  boy  came  obediently;  at  first  he  was 
afraid  and  loth  to  speak,  but  he  seemed  to  be 
shy  rather  than  sullen,  and  after  a  while  he  talked 
fearlessly  and  simply  of  such  things  as  he  knew; 
of  the  lore  of  his  race,  and  of  the  customs  of  the 
peoples  of  the  wood,  sometimes  called  dumb 
brutes  by  those  who  cannot  speak  their  tongue. 
His  simplicity  and  gentleness,  and  his  forgetful- 
ness  of  the  harshness  of  his  former  judge,  won 
upon  the  man.  He  felt  remorse,  and  asked  him 
what  he  had  done  when  his  songs  were  destroyed, 

'  For  I  might,'  said  he,  '  have  left  those  to  you 
90 


u 


The  Tree  of  Beauty 


in  which  I  found  no  offence.'  The  gipsy  answered 
simply  that  he  went  hungry  for  three  days;  also 
his  sweetheart  followed  another  because  he  could 
not  give  her  the  beads  he  had  promised  her. 
There  were  tears  in  his  eyes  as  he  spoke  and 
yet  he  laughed. 

"  They  went  on  for  a  while  in  silence;  at  last 
the  lad  stopped,  and  said : 

"  '  Gentlemen,  I  am  sorry.  The  wood  is  very 
strange  to-night,  and  I  have  missed  my  way.  I 
meant  to  lead  you  right.  Do  not  think  evil  of 
me.  I  know  now  that  you  who  are  not  of  our 
race  quarrel  among  yourselves.  But  in  this  you 
agree.  To  curse  us  who  are  not  of  any  faith,  and 
to  believe  evil  of  us  because  we  live  under  the 
sky  and  have  other  ways  and  thoughts  than 
yours.  But — but  I  am  very  tired  of  being  cursed.' 

"  '  You  shall  not  be  cursed  by  me,'  said  the 
man  by  whose  side  he  walked.  '  Nor  will  I  believe 
you  wilfully  led  us  wrong.' 

"  Then  the  gipsy  took  courage;  he  listened  a 
little  while,  and  cried : 

"  '  I  hear  the  crackle  of  a  camp  fire.  Perhaps 
some  of  my  people  are  hereabouts.  If  so,  do  not 
fear  us;  we  will  welcome  you  if  you  trust  us, 
and  give  you  what  we  have  to  share.' 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

"  The  others  heard  nothing,  but  the  lad  led 
them  towards  the  sound  his  ears  caught,  and 
soon  they  saw  he  was  right.  They  came  to  an 
open  space  in  the  wood;  there  was  a  circle  of 
huge  grey  stones,  a  temple  of  the  gods  of  a 
vanished  faith ;  within  the  circle  was  turf,  where 
rabbits  leaped  and  ate;  in  the  centre  a  pool 
twenty  feet  deep,  crystal  clear,  and  green  as  pale 
chrysolite;  had  it  been  day  each  tiny  weed  that 
grew  in  the  depth,  each  little  stone  that  lay  there, 
would  have  shone  clear.  In  the  centre  of  the  pool 
was  an  islet,  and  on  the  isle  a  little  ruined  chapel 
dedicated  to  the  Mother  of  God;  in  the  chapel 
was  a  gipsy  fire  streaming  upwards  towards  the 
great  starlit  sky,  and  causing  wondrous  shadows 
to  leap  and  chase  on  the  ruined  walls.  A  thin 
slab  of  rock  rose  from  the  depths  of  the  pool  to 
the  surface  of  the  water,  so  that  there  was  a 
narrow  perilous  pathway  from  the  shore  to  the 
isle.  In  the  chapel  by  the  fire  there  sat  on  the 
broken  pavement  a  young  barefooted  woman, 
clad  in  a  peasant  dress  of  blue  frieze,  a  cloak 
about  her  shoulders,  her  hair  falling  veilwise 
around  her,  and  a  young  child  sleeping  in  her 
arms.  The  boy  called  to  her  in  Romany;  she 
rose  and  came  to  the  shore  of  the  isle,  her  child 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

in  her  arms,  and  answered  him  in  the  same 
tongue.  She  was  a  beautiful  brown-haired  young 
woman;  her  solemn  eyes  were  grey,  and  as  clear 
as  the  pool  by  which  she  stood. 

"  '  Bid  her  speak  in  a  tongue  we  can  under- 
stand/ said  the  preacher. 

"The  boy  did  so;  asking  whether  she  could 
direct  them. 

' '  I  could,  little  brother/  she  answered  in  a 
sweet  voice.  '  But  you  and  these  gentlemen  might 
not  understand  me  well.  Better  to  shelter  by 
these  stones  to-night,  or  cross  the  water  to  my 
fire;  to-morrow  you  may  seek  your  own  way/ 

"  '  Have  you  any  food,  mother/  said  the  lad, 
'  food  fit  to  offer  such  worshipful  gentlemen?  ' 

"  '  Scarcely  is  it  fit,  brother/  said  the  gipsy 
woman.  '  I  have  here  bread,  and  a  little  wine, 
and  one  cup  only  in  which  to  serve  it/ 

' '  If  I  had  known  you  camped  here,  sister/ 
said  the  boy,  '  and  if  you  had  no  man  to  see  that 
all  is  well  with  you  and  the  child,  I  could  have 
set  snares  in  the  fern,  and  you  would  have  supped 
better/ 

' '  I  know  it/  she  answered.    '  Had  I  asked  it 
of  you,  you  would  have  set  snares  for  these  little 
children.     Nay,  then,  brother,  you  would  have 
93 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

shared  all  you  trapped  till  you  went  supperless 
yourself.  Therefore  you  shall  eat  of  my  bread 
and  drink  the  wine  I  have  to  give.  Cross  the 
water  to  me.' 

"  '  But  these  good  gentlemen,  mother?  '  asked 
the  boy. 

"  '  They  may  take  you  by  the  hand,'  she  said, 
'  and  cross  the  water  to  me.' 

' '  I  do  not  think  they  can  tread  a  path  so 
narrow  as  this  rock.  It  is  slippery.  Sister,  I  will 
cross  and  bring  to  them  what  you  have  of  food 
and  drink,  and  fire  that  we  may  build  a  fire  by 
the  stone.' 

"  '  You  may  take  them  fire,'  she  answered, 
'  but  for  food  and  drink  they  must  cross  to  me. 
They  cannot  walk  with  your  feet ;  they  must  use 
their  own.  They  must  cross  barefoot,  or  they 
will  fall  into  the  pool.' 

"  After  a  while  the  man  who  ruled  this  little 
northern  village  determined  to  cross;  he  was 
hungry,  and  preferred  the  scantiest  fare  to  fast- 
ing ;  besides  he  saw  the  cross  on  the  ruined  altar, 
and  he  desired  to  enter  the  chapel  and  pray. 
The  preacher  demurred  at  the  depth  of  the  cold 
still  water;  the  chapel  was  a  former  place  of 
Popish  worship,  the  cross  on  the  altar  offended 
94 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

him,  and  he  was  not  yet  very  hungry,  besides 
he  had  a  little  food  still  in  his  wallet.  He  tethered 
the  horses  and  sat  down  to  eat,  while  his  two 
companions  crept,  hand  in  hand,  inch  by  inch 
over  the  narrow  rock  path  that  was  just  visible 
above  the  shifting  shimmer  of  the  pool's  surface. 

"  Entering  the  chapel  they  sat  side  by  side  on 
the  broken  pavement.  The  woman,  sitting  beside 
the  fire,  broke  her  cakes  of  bread ;  she  gave  them 
each  a  portion,  and  ate  some  herself;  she  drank 
from  the  cup  and  handed  it  to  them. 

"  '  Till  the  sun  rises,'  she  said,  '  I  shall  rest 
here,  I  and  my  child.  Rest  you  here,  also,  and 
sleep  or  watch  as  you  will.  Through  the  night 
my  fire  will  burn ;  at  dawn  I  shall  let  it  die.  It  will 
have  lighted  and  warmed  us  till  the  sun  shall  rise.' 

"  The  preacher,  having  prayed,  wrapped  him- 
self in  his  cloak,  and  sat  at  the  foot  of  a  great 
stone,  watching  the  horses  as  they  cropped  the 
turf,  lest  they  should  stray  and  be  lost ;  he  mused 
profitably  and  seriously  on  his  labours  and  doc- 
trine. He  heard  the  cropping  of  the  horses,  the 
murmur  of  the  wind,  and  the  trickle  of  a  stream, 
fed  by  the  deep  still  pool.  He  heard  the  woman 
singing  softly  to  her  child,  in  crooning  snatches, 
in  seeming  unmindf ulness  of  what  she  sang : 
95 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

"  '  He  that  is  down  need  fear  no  fall,'  she 
crooned.  '  He  that  is  low  no  pride ' 

"  She  whispered  wordless  music  as  she  rocked 
to  and  fro ;  then  her  song  changed : 

"  '  0  Tree  of  Beauty — Tree  of  Might,'  she  sang, 
clear,  faint,  and  high,  in  a  monotonous  chant, 
such  as  the  chapel  must  have  echoed  to  in  the 
days  when  priests  served  before  its  ruined  altar, 
and  men  and  women  knelt  at  the  little  shrine 
above  which  was  the  statue  of  a  Mother  and 
Child,  '  O  Tree  of  Beauty — Tree  of  Beauty — Tree 
of  Might ' 

"  The  gipsy  boy  lay  near  the  fire  rejoicing  in 
the  warmth,  looking  sometimes  up  to  the  star- 
lit sky,  across  which  many  a  meteor  flamed  and 
died,  sometimes  at  the  shadows  that  leaped  on 
the  walls,  sometimes  into  the  woman's  face. 

"  '  What  do  you  sing,  sister?  '  he  said.  '  It  is 
not  a  song  of  our  people.' 

"  '  It  is  a  song  of  all  peoples,  brother,'  she 
answered.  '  But  they  sing  it  in  many  tongues, 
and  to  many  tunes.' 

"  The  lad  looked  at  her  wonderingly;  then  he 
began  to  watch  the  stars  again,  and  the  little  thin 
clouds  that  flew  across  the  dark  sky.  At  last  he 

went  to  sleep  with  his  head  resting  on  his  arm; 
96 


"  The  Tl-ee  of  Beauty  " 

sometimes  he  laughed  and  whispered  as  he  slept, 
and  thrice  he  sobbed.  The  woman  bent  down  and 
cast  over  him  a  fold  of  her  cloak,  as  he  lay  and 
dreamed  under  the  stars. 

"  As  for  the  third  traveller,  he,  mindful  of  the 
sacredness  of  the  place,  stood  not  alone  barefooted 
(for  to  cross  the  rock  it  had  been  needful  to  lay 
aside  all  covering  of  his  feet),  but  also  bareheaded 
he  turned  his  face  to  the  East,  and  perceiving  the 
little  side  altar  with  the  statue  of  the  Mother,  he 
approached  and  knelt  before  it,  making  the  sign 
of  the  cross.  There  he  knelt  till  dawn,  for  he  was 
one  used  to  prayer  and  vigil.  The  woman  sat 
motionless,  guarding  the  leaping  flames;  bread 
in  her  hands,  the  wine  cup  at  her  feet,  her  cloak 
enfolding  the  sleeping  outcast,  the  swaddled  babe 
on  her  knees.  Now  of  her  thoughts,  which  were 
measureless,  there  is  no  record  I  can  read;  nor 
can  I  tell  of  the  gipsy  boy's  dreams.  But  it  is 
said  the  other  two  wanderers  saw  the  place  in 
very  different  fashion,  and  this  is  what  they  saw. 
The  preacher  beheld  the  dark  circle  of  the  en- 
closing oak  trees,  stirred  by  the  wind;  he  saw 
the  great  grey  stones  reared  by  the  dead  pagans; 
he  saw  the  turf,  the  horses,  and  the  wild  rabbits; 
he  saw  the  pool  shining  in  the  firelight,  the  ruined 
97  o 


u 


The  Tree  of  Beauty 


chapel,  the  leaping  flame,  and  the  woman  sitting 
beside  it  with  her  child  on  her  knee,  and  the 
sleeping  lad  lying  at  her  feet.  And  his  eyes  rested 
on  her  till  he  forgot  the  strife  of  creeds;  he 
watched  till  she  seemed  to  him  the  image  or 
forthshowing  of  the  motherhood  of  the  world; 
and  when  next  he  preached  he  spoke  no  harsh 
doctrine,  nor  railed  at  idolatrous  worship  of  a 
creature  rather  than  of  the  Creator,  as  he  was 
wont  to  do;  but  he  spoke  of  the  Love  of  God 
shown  forth  in  human  love,  and  above  all  in  the 
great  love  of  a  mother  for  her  little  children;  for 
this  pure  love,  said  he,  is  an  example  to  us  of 
the  love  that  gives  rather  than  takes,  it  is  a 
symbol  of  the  Divine  Love,  that,  motherlike, 
feeds,  sustains,  and  preserves  all  creatures. 

"  Now  the  other  traveller  passed  into  profound 
musing,  till  his  outer  senses  were  locked  as  though 
in  sleep;  and  he  saw  the  place  in  which  he  was 
after  the  following  manner  and  semblance.  He 
saw  the  girdle  of  trees  as  the  wall  of  a  great 
temple,  therein  there  were  three  courts,  and  at 
the  centre  a  shrine.  In  the  first  court  was  the 
image  of  a  woman  bearing  a  child  in  her  arms; 
about  her  were  lights  burning  and  the  smell  of 
incense,  and  the  song  of  human  praise;  priests 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  ': 

in  rich  vestments  celebrated  solemn  rites,  and 
worshippers,  both  male  and  female,  old  and 
young,  bowed  down  before  this  mother  and  child. 
In  the  second  court  there  was  a  dimness  as  of  a 
starlit  night ;  there  was  no  incense  save  the  smell 
of  earth  and  flowers,  no  song  but  the  song  of  birds, 
and  of  streams,  and  the  boom  of  waves  like  the 
tones  of  an  organ;  no  lights  but  strange  fires 
that  gleamed  and  flickered  through  the  night,  no 
worshippers  save  dim  forms  of  the  gracious 
'  hidden  peoples/  the  gods  of  wood  and  orchard, 
plain  and  tilth. 

"  In  the  third  court  was  a  turmoil  of  cold 
flame;  those  who  served  and  worshipped  there 
(if  servitors  and  worshippers  there  were),  were 
many-hued,  transparent,  flame-like ;  here  was  no 
human  being — neither  was  there  male  nor  female, 
but  in  that  turmoil  of  fires  were  strange  forms 
moving  in  time  to  music,  and  wonderful  shapes 
that  changed  and  gleamed  and  moved  in  marvel- 
lous sort  with  a  motion  and  rhythm  that  had 
therein  nothing  earthly  whereof  tongue  can  rightly 
speak  or  pen  set  down;  but  throughout  the  tur- 
moil of  this  wondrous  dance  there  was  an  order 
and  a  purpose,  for  they  moved  in  time  to  a  great 
song  that  seemed  like  silence. 
99 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

"  But  in  the  Shrine  there  was  nothing  visible; 
only  from  it  a  voice  was  heard  crying: 

'  '  She  who  is  worshipped  in  this  temple  is 
the  Mother  of  all  Faiths,  past  and  present. 
She  is  worshipped  as  the  Divine  Mother  of  the 
Worlds,  as  the  Power  of  Wisdom,  as  the  Secret 
Rose,  as  star-strewn  space,  as  Mary  the  Virgin, 
Mother  of  God;  as  the  deep  waters  of  the  sea, 
also;  and  some  there  be  who  think  of  Her  as 
woman.  She  is  the  Form  Divine,  Memory  and 
Time;  She  is  angel  and  man,  woman  and  child, 
beast  and  bird,  sky  and  cloud  and  flower,  song 
of  bird,  dew,  sunshine  and  rain,  wind  and  water, 
snow  and  frost,  tree  and  stream,  priests'  chant 
and  sacred  writ,  learning  and  holy  rites.  She 
is  the  Sacred  Mirror  of  God,  in  Whom  are 
all  things  visible  and  invisible.  They  who  toil 
in  Her  service  worship  and  praise  Her,  and 
of  Her  the  Holy  Child  is  born  in  every  human 
heart.  She,  the  sacred  cup,  and  the  holy  bread; 
She,  the  lily  of  flame  set  in  the  waters  of  space; 
She,  the  waters  whence  it  springs;  She,  the  hearts 
of  men,  and  their  souls  and  bodies ;  She,  the  Holy 
Cave,  the  consecrated  Manger  wherein  the  Babe 
is  cradled;  She  is  the  Mother  of  the  Sacred 
Humanity  whereby  we  enter  the  mystery  of  the 


"  The  Tree  of  Beauty  " 

Godhead.  She,  then  is  Nature  and  Beauty,  the 
Power  of  God,  the  Builder  of  all  Forms,  the 
Mother  of  all  Tales.  Those  sing  of  Her  and  praise 
Her  who  love  to  worship  God  as  Divine  Form 
rather  than  as  hidden  all-sustaining  Life.  For 
He,  though  he  be  One,  is  likewise  manifold;  and 
those  who  adore  Him  in  the  many  praise  Hun 
in  the  sacred  Form,  eternal  in  the  heavens  when 
all  earthly  forms  have  passed  like  spray  driven 
by  the  wind;  Mary  the  Ever- Virgin,  the  Root 
of  all  the  worlds,  one  with  the  life  that  sustains 
them,  eternally  inseparate  from  It.  She  is  the 
Temple  of  God,  the  glorified  body  of  the  saint, 
the  celestial  garden  of  the  souls  made  one;  She 
is  the  Sacred  Wood  of  the  Cross,  the  Tree  of 
Might  and  Beauty " 

The  man  who  told  this  tale  ceased  to  speak. 
He  was  silent  till  the  playwright  touched  his  arm ; 
he  started: 

"  Is  that  the  end?  "  said  the  playwright. 

"It  is  the  end,"  said  the  man,  dreamily. 
"  There  is  nothing  more  to  tell." 


101 


FORTY-EIGHT   HOURS 

We  are  in  Thee  who  art  strength: 

Give  us  Thy  strength! 
We  are  in  Thee  who  art  love: 

Give  us  Thy  love ! 
We  are  in  Thee  who  art  power: 

Give  us  Thy  power! 
We  are  in  Thee  who  art  peace: 

Give,  Lord,  Thy  peace! 
We  are  in  Thee  who  dost  wait : 

Teach  us  to  wait! 

Litany  of  the  Wood. 

THERE  were  three  men  in  the  large  square,  solidly 
furnished  room.  Two  of  them  were  talking;  the 
third  was  silent.  It  was  a  comfortable  room — 
a  library  well  filled  with  books.  The  men  who 
talked  were  the  host  and  his  guest;  he  who  was 
silent  was  the  secretary,  who  wrote  in  the  large 
bow  window  looking  on  the  terrace,  where 
sparrows  quarrelled  in  the  ivy,  and  the  daffodils 
and  nancies  nodded  in  the  soft  blustering  wind 
of  late  spring. 

The  secretary  was  a  pale,  shrewd-faced  young 
man  of  twenty-eight;  he  was  of  middle  height, 
not  plain,  nor  yet  comely,  except  for  his  eyes, 
which  were  very  clear  and  quiet,  and  of  a  striking 


Forty-eight  Hours 

yellowish-grey.  He  was  unobtrusively  dressed, 
and  very  impassive,  not  to  say  dull,  in  manner. 
He  was  civil,  however,  attentive  when  he  was 
spoken  to;  his  voice  was  pleasant,  and  rather 
conciliatory  in  tone,  as  though  he  was  deprecating 
anger. 

He  was  writing  letters  in  a  small,  neat  hand, 
and  showed  no  sign  of  hearing  any  conversation 
that  was  not  addressed  to  him. 

His  employer  was  talking;  he  was  a  good 
talker,  and  a  good  lecturer.  He  was  a  very  public- 
spirited  person  full  of  affairs  and  had  just  written 
a  certain  world-compelling  pamphlet,  which  was 
intended  to  revolutionise  thought  in  various  un- 
expected quarters.  He  was  a  very  well-known, 
much-applauded,  and  generally  respected  person. 

He  was  talking  to  a  guest  who  was  less  ap- 
plauded because  he  was  held  to  be  soberly  com- 
monplace; nevertheless  he  too  was  generally 
respected,  for  he  did  nothing  in  particular, 
whether  of  good  or  evil,  and  was  known  to  be 
very  rich  and  growing  richer. 

He  listened  to  his  host,  but  an  observant  person 
would  have  noticed  that  he  often  glanced  at  the 
secretary. 

When  the  host  proposed  a  stroll  before  luncheon 
103 


Forty-eight  Hours 

he  rose;  he  was  silent  till  they  were  on  the  terrace, 
then  he  said  carelessly : 

"  That  man  of  yours,  Dexter,  is  a  steady- 
looking  fellow." 

"Oyes;  he's  steady  and  shrewd  too.  I  believe 
him  to  be  a  good  fellow  in  the  main.  Not  quite 
reliable — as  regards  money  matters  some  years 
ago.  However,  he  was  young,  and  he  paid  the 
penalty.  I  gave  him  a  fresh  start,  and  I've  never 
repented  it.  I  think  bygones  should  be  bygones." 

"  Quite  so,"  said  the  guest. 

The  host  had  a  "  carrying  voice  " ;  it  "  carried  " 
into  the  room  where  the  secretary  sat. 

He  had  finished  the  letters;  he  was  sorting  and 
arranging  the  MS.  of  the  world-compelling  pamph- 
let, before  proceeding  to  type  it.  The  writer  was  a 
religiously-disposed  man  and  a  church-goer;  he 
liked  to  preface  his  pamphlets  with  a  motto, 
generally  a  text.  This  one  was  a  text;  it  ran: 
"Do  unto  others  as  ye  would  they  should  do 
unto  you." 

He  was  an  excellent  man ;  but  he  never  stopped 
to  think  whether  he  was  in  the  habit  of  making 
a  catalogue  of  his  past  offences  to  his  listening 
friends  and  new  acquaintances  or  whether  he 

would  like  to  know  that  they  did  so  on  his  behalf. 
104 


Forty-eight  Hours 

There  was  once  a  converted  heathen  who  was 
much  cleverer  than  those  who  converted  him. 
He  told  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  that  he  and  his 
fellow-converts  were  in  the  habit  of  gathering 
together  to  make  public  confession  of  their  sins. 

"  An  excellent  discipline,  doubtless,"  said  the 
good  bishop,  "  but  such  public  confession  must 
be  painful." 

"By  no  means,"  said  the  simple  penitent. 
"  Because  we  do  not  confess  our  own  sins,  but 
each  others'." 

The  bishop  mused  on  the  childlike  simplicity 
of  the  convert;  but — was  the  former  heathen  as 
guileless  as  he  sounded? 

The  secretary  heard  the  words  of  his  employer ; 
his  hands  began  to  shake.  Presently  he  dropped 
the  MS.  and  sat  staring  out  of  the  window.  It 
was  seven  years  since  he  had  "  paid  the  penalty," 
seven  solid  years  of  dull  drudgery  and  loneliness, 
and  they  were  still  discussing  it,  and  his  "  fresh 
start." 

He  sighed;  picked  up  his  pencil  (he  was 
numbering  chaotic  scraps  of  a  very  badly  written 
MS.),  let  it  slide  to  the  carpet,  rested  his  arms  on 
the  table,  and  his  head  on  his  arms,  and  sighed, 
and  sighed,  and  sighed  again ;  a  sigh  sadder  than 
105 


Forty-eight  Hours 

a  sob,  because  it  spoke  of  a  greater  weariness, 
and  a  more  utter  depression  and  spiritlessness. 

The  door  opened;  the  guest  appeared ;  he  shut 
the  door  quietly  and  stood  looking  at  the  secre- 
tary. At  last  he  said  softly: 

"  Dexter." 

The  man  started  and  sprang  up;  his  eyes 
looked  nervous  and  ashamed. 

"  That's  all  right,"  said  the  other.  "  I  only 
want  to  tell  you  what  I've  been  leading  up  to  for 
days.  You  knew  I'd  been  leading  up  to  some- 
thing." 

"  I  thought  you  were.  I  don't  know  what  it  is." 

"  I  should  not  have  come  in  here  when  I  was 
supposed  to  be  writing  letters  and  talked  to  you, 
unless  I  had  been  trying  to  size  you  up.  I 
shouldn't  size  you  up  unless  I  wanted  you  for 
something." 

"  Want  me!    For  what?  " 

"  I'll  tell  you." 

The  guest  sat  in  the  bow  window  and  began  to 
talk  in  a  low  voice.  It  does  not  matter  specially 
what  he  said:  it  was  a  plan  of  action  which  a 
man  of  fair  repute  could  only  have  told  to  one 
whose  reputation  for  honesty  was  smirched.  It 

was  a  very  creditable  scheme  from  the  point  of 
106 


Forty-eight  Hours 

view  of  a  skilful  speculator  and  financier  who  was 
not  particular  about  his  methods. 

"  My  name  must  never  appear,"  he  said, 
"  though  of  course  I  am  the  backer  of  the  concern. 
If  you  will  run  the  thing  for  me  as  your  own,  you 
understand,  then — I  will  make  it  worth  your 
while.  I  don't  mind,  to  speak  quite  frankly, 
broaching  the  matter  to  you,  because  my  reputa- 
tion stands  high,  and  I  can  back  it  with  a  big 
cheque.  If  you  were  to  say  I  had  spoken  to  you 
thus,  you  would  not  be  believed  if  I  denied  it. 
You  would  be  thought  a  blackmailer,  that's  all." 

"  I  suppose  so.  I'm  not  likely  to  tell  any  one. 
I  don't  talk  much;  and  I  should  only  get  into 
fresh  trouble  if  I  talked  of  this." 

"  Yes.  You're  quiet  and  shrewd.  I've  watched 
you  a  long  time.  Your  life  here  is  a  dog's  life. 
You  are  ticketed  as  the  man — who  was  found  out. 
Now  there's  very  little  risk  in  this;  practically 
none.  For  if  the  thing  fails  I  don't  think  the  law 
can  touch  you.  Of  course  your  reputation  would 
be  gone ;  but  then  you've  damaged  that  already, 
and  he  doesn't  forget  it,  any  more  than  you  do, 
does  he?  " 

"  Naturally  he  does  not." 

"  If  it  succeeds,  and  I  think  it  will,  then  I  will 
107 


Forty-eight  Hours 

give  you  enough  of  the  proceeds  to  give  you  a 
real  "  fresh  start "  in  America.  My  name  will 
never  appear;  it  will  never  be  traced  who  paid 
you  the  money;  you  will  simply  reserve  a  sum 
agreed  on  between  us.  That's  tempting  to  you, 
isn't  it?  It  means  freedom,  and  a  clean  record 
in  another  country.  That's  tempting?  " 

"  I  think  so.     Will  you  give  me  twenty-four 
hours  to  think  it  over?  " 

"  As  long  as  you  like  in  moderation." 
"  It's  only  that  I  feel  rather  played  out  and 
tired,  that's  all.  I  funk  at  anything  that  is  fresh ; 
anything  that  needs  thought  and  smartness." 
"  Ask  for  a  holiday;  rest  and  think  it  over." 
So  the  man  asked  for  a  holiday,  and  was 
granted  forty-eight  hours;  not  more,  because 
there  was  haste  to  produce  the  world-compelling 
pamphlet.  He  thought  he  would  walk  five  miles 
to  the  forest,  and  live  two  days  and  nights  in 
solitude  under  the  open  sky.  He  started  in  the 
dark,  with  a  knapsack  strapped  to  his  shoulders. 
It  was  dawn  when  he  reached  the  forest,  and 
crossed  a  stretch  of  heath,  whence  the  sea  could 
be  smelt,  salt  and  pungent ;  and  the  island,  too, 
could  be  seen,  lying,  indigo-blue,  in  the  clear 

distance. 

108 


Forty-eight  Hours 

It  was  a  very  clear  dawn,  as  clear  as  crystal, 
and  sights  and  sounds  and  smells  had  a  bell-like 
clean-cut  purity  that  struck  the  soul  at  first 
hand,  so  that  one  hardly  realised  the  perception 
of  them  came  by  way  of  the  body.  There  was  a 
winding  ribbon-like  road,  which  crossed  the  heath 
after  it  crept  out  of  the  thick  forest,  and  along  it  a 
red-painted  mailcart  went.  Behind  the  cart  ran 
an  old  dog,  lured  neither  to  the  right  nor  to  the 
left  in  his  steady  following.  The  cart  clattered 
over  a  railless  wooden  bridge  which  crossed  a 
slow  stream  in  which  watergrasses  waved;  there 
were  two  moor-fowl  swimming  on  it,  and  its  banks 
were  shining  with  water  forget-me-nots. 

He  passed  the  mailcart  and  crossed  the  bridge ; 
then  he  reached  the  woods  and  left  the  road. 
He  wanted  a  quiet  place  in  which  to  think;  he 
had  brought  with  him,  in  his  knapsack,  bread 
and  cheese  and  apples, — enough  food  for  two 
days.  He  walked  down  a  turf  path,  climbed  a 
gate,  walked  through  two  straight  pine  avenues, 
and  gained  the  "  open  forest,"  a  great  silent 
glade  solemn  and  wonderful  in  the  breathless 
waiting  of  dawn.  Here  companies  of  rabbits 
were  feeding;  here  were  huge  spring-flushed 

oaks,    twisted   thorns,   delicate   birches   glowing 
109 


Forty-eight  Hours 

with  the  marvel  of  young  leafage.  Here  too  was 
gorse  ablaze  with  the  fire  of  God,  and  on  the  top- 
most twig  of  a  larch,  outlined  against  the  sky, 
was  a  thrush,  a-quiver  with  a  passion  of  song, 
telling  a  marvellous  secret  of  the  heart  of  things, 
as  only  those  can  tell  who  do  not  understand  the 
uttermost  meaning  of  their  speech. 

He  had  walked  through  the  place  looking  at 
nothing  until  now;  he  had  an  important  decision 
to  make.  But  now  he  stopped  as  though  a  great 
hand  had  gripped  him,  and  he  stared  at  the  bird 
with  his  eyes  half-shut.  It  was  so  clear;  he  could 
see  the  little  feathers  a-tremble  at  its  quivering 
throat,  as  the  notes  bubbled  up  like  drops  of 
bright  water  from  a  well  of  joy. 

He  stared  and  listened  till  the  thrush  flew  away. 

He  came  to  a  little  grove  of  holly  trees;  and 
there,  on  the  round  circle  of  oozing  wood  where 
a  great  apple  tree  had  been  felled,  he  lay  down 
and  ate  some  bread  and  an  apple.  Then  he  went 
to  sleep,  and  when  he  woke  it  was  noon;  the 
glade  was  a  marvel  of  dappled  shade  and  shine. 

There  was  a  blue  tit  swinging  on  the  holly 
bough  above  him ;  and  a  fox  was  trotting  demurely 
through  the  fern  a  few  yards  away.  It  was  all 

sacredly,  wonderfully  still.      The  place  taught 
no 


Forty-eight  Hours 

nothing ;  said  nothing ;  it  was  itself  —  it  was 
what  it  was.  That  was  all. 

He  heard  a  quick  patter  of  rain;  and  the 
leaves  shone  with  diamonds;  he  watched  them 
a-glitter  in  the  sun,  when  it  shone  forth  again. 
A  drove  of  shaggy  cream-coloured  cattle  came  by, 
crashing  through  the  tangle,  and  passing  the  little 
grove  of  hollies,  all  a-shine  in  the  sun,  where  he  lay. 

When  they  passed  he  rose  and  wandered  down 
a  turf  alley  till  the  pines  hid  the  wide  stretch  of 
the  open  forest ;  then  he  lay  with  his  face  hidden 
on  the  great  cushions  of  the  moss;  and  listened 
half-unconsciously  to  the  silence — the  wonderful 
sounding  silence — of  the  wood. 

There  was  a  big  beech  tree  near;  it  blazed 
with  the  green  fire  of  spring;  at  its  foot  were  the 
shining  sticky  brown  sheaths  that  once  shielded 
the  young  leaves.  The  oaks  were  pink,  they  were 
as  rosy  as  the  dawn  sky  when  he  reached  the 
forest.  From  the  wood — only  he  was  too  tired 
to  rise  and  seek  them — he  could  smell  some  late 
primroses  yet  lingering  on  the  sweet  wet  earth, 
from  which  the  young  grass  sprang.  He  heard  a 
wood-pigeon's  slow,  sleepy  note  a-purr  from  a 
little  grove  of  larches.  Presently,  with  a  strong 

beat  of  blue-grey  wings  the  bird  flew  between 
in 


Forty-eight  Hours 

him  and  the  sky.  Then  a  jay  swung  silently  from 
the  pines  and  perched  on  a  bough  above  him; 
the  conscienceless  bird  chuckled  and  preened 
his  feathers;  a  tiny  blue  black-barred  wonder 
fluttered  down  on  the  man's  chest. 

Lying  so,  he  could  see  the  stiff,  straight  stems 
of  the  uncurling  bracken,  quite  differently  from 
the  fashion  in  which  they  are  seen  when  they  are 
looked  at  from  above;  they  stood  rank  by  rank, 
straight,  stiff,  and  green,  with  their  little  brown 
cowled  heads  bent  like  monks  in  prayer. 

There  was  a  much  bigger  life  than  his  unfolding 
its  affairs  there  in  the  wood;  and  it  made  no 
turmoil  or  fuss  about  it;  it  lived  and  reasoned 
not;  it  kept  the  commandments  because  it  was 
not  aware  they  were  apart  from  itself.  And  what 
were  the  commandments  of  the  wood  ?  Certainly 
they  were  kept,  whatever  they  were,  for  the  place 
was  full  of  beauty  and  of  rest. 

The  shadows  grew  long;  it  was  time  to  eat 
some  bread  and  cheese;  he  ate  some,  and  drank 
from  a  little  stream.  It  struck  him  he  had  not 
been  thinking  of  the  things  he  came  there  to 
think  about;  but  after  all  he  should  probably 
accept  the  offer,  and  he  was  very  tired.  He  had 
not  realised  before  how  much  he  was  over- worked. 

112 


Forty-eight  Hours 

To-morrow  he  would  think.  In  the  meantime 
he  would  walk  through  the  darkening  pine 
avenue,  and  see  the  dusk,  like  a  purple-robed 
giant,  stalk  over  the  land. 

He  walked  on  and  on;  the  pine  walks  were 
unending.  Each  walk  was  cut  and  crossed  by 
another  vista  of  mystery;  and  always  there  was 
some  hint  of  wonders  veiling  unseen  marvels. 
Sometimes  a  milky-white  bush  of  blackthorn; 
sometimes  a  little  stream;  sometimes  a  circle 
of  great  dead  oaks  like  frosted  silver,  all  ringed 
about  by  frost-bleached  grass,  through  which 
the  new  green  blades  were  pushing,  and  walled 
by  dark  pines  touched  by  the  little  sticky  buds 
of  spring  growth.  Sometimes  there  was  a  pool 
of  water  shimmering  in  the  shadow  of  the  trees, 
set  about  with  rose-pink  blossoming  bog-myrtle, 
and  white  bog-cotton,  and  wonderful  little  flat 
leaves  shining  like  emeralds. 

But  at  last  he  reached  the  gate.  Beyond  the 
gate  was  a  stretch  of  green  heather;  and  thereon 
forest  ponies  feeding,  and  cows  with  sleepily 
tolling  bells.  On  it,  too,  great  raised  mounds; 
bracken  and  heather-clothed  barrows  where 
rabbits  burrowed  in  the  grave  of  some  long-dead 
fighter.  To  the  right  was  a  curved  line  of  woods 


Forty-eight  Hours 

that  seemed  to  be  made  of  dusky  red  and  green 
jewels.  Before  him  was  the  island  glowing  like 
sapphire;  in  the  foreground  on  the  open  barren 
heath  was  a  little  dark  wind- twisted  pine  clear-cut 
against  the  sky ;  and  the  sky  ablaze  with  the  colour 
that  is  the  parting  blessing  of  the  Lord  of  Light. 

It  was  a  pale  sky  of  dream-blue;  in  the  west 
it  shone  with  crimson  and  orange  flame,  fading 
into  green  like  a  breath  of  some  secret  mystery  of 
tenderness,  and  pinks  like  a  dream  of  the  love  of 
God;  and  a  violet  so  faint,  pure,  and  holy  that 
the  heart  quivered  at  the  sight  of  it.  Colour  that 
speaks  the  tongue  of  the  gods  when  thought  falls 
dead  and  the  sound  of  speech  is  mere  hollowness. 

When  the  colour  faded  big  purple  clouds  began 
to  drift  up  over  the  pale  yellow  sky  until  it  was 
all  a  wonderful  thick  purple-blue  darkness  in 
which  sounds  were  both  clear  and  muffled;  far- 
away sounds  were  clear,  and  sounds  close  at 
hand  were  muffled  and  eerie;  pale  milk-grey 
lights  began  to  slide  through  the  darkness. 

There  were  no  stars;  only  the  warm,  dark, 
sweet-smelling  half-silence.  He  could  not  see  a 
yard  before  his  face,  and  yet  he  felt  the  darkness 
was  a  big,  far-reaching  space  about  him. 

There  was  a  dry  ditch  among  the  pines;    it 
114 


Forty-eight  Hours 

was  full  of  yellow-brown  pine-needles.  He  lay 
down  there  and  heard  the  noises  of  the  night; 
the  snapping  of  twigs,  the  rustle  of  little  night- 
prowling  beasts.  Once  a  badger  stole  by;  once 
a  night-bird  shrieked;  the  owls  called  hoo-hoo 
in  the  branches.  Once  there  echoed  a  cry  of  pain 
and  fear  through  the  wood,  the  death-shriek  of 
some  tiny  citizen.  Once  a  night- jar  purred  in  the 
tree  above  his  head;  and  once  the  magic  of  the 
nightingale  trembled  through  the  warm  dark  air 
in  a  limpid  river  of  sound. 

At  last  he  slept ;  and  he  woke  to  a  wild  rush  of 
rain.  The  wood  was  full  of  a  pale  cool  light ;  the 
pine-needles  dripped;  he  heard  the  gurgle  of  a 
hurry  of  water  in  the  ditch  beyond  the  gate.  He 
got  up;  the  livid  greenish-purple  clouds  were 
rushing  across  the  sky;  the  island  was  veiled  in 
a  white  mist  of  rain;  the  forest  ponies  galloped 
for  some  scant  shelter;  some  of  the  herd  turned 
disconsolate  noses  from  the  rush  of  waters ;  some 
squealed  and  kicked  and  bit  at  each  other; 
others  endured  in  meekness.  A  big  ants'  nest 
near  the  gate  was  flooded;  pools  stood  in  the 
heather;  and  a  heap  of  cream- white  foam  swirled 
on  the  brown  water  in  the  ditch. 

Light  wisps  of  cloud  fled  across  the  background 
"5 


Forty -eight  Hours 

of  livid  green-purple.  He  stood  under  shelter 
of  the  trees  and  watched  the  storm. 

It  passed;  the  clouds  flew  seawards;  the 
sky  grew  a  pale  even  grey;  then  a  cool,  soft 
wind  began  to  blow.  The  east  grew  faint  pink, 
then  yellow-grey;  then  a  long  line  of  light 
quivered  over  the  heather.  The  new  day  had  come. 
The  birds  were  stirring  and  singing;  the  rabbits 
hopped  out  to  feed ;  a  stoat  darted  across  the  track ; 
and  the  clang  of  a  cow-bell  echoed  across  the  moor. 

He  found  the  slowly  moving  stream  he  crossed 
yesterday;  there  he  bathed;  then  he  ate  some 
of  the  food  he  had  brought  with  him.  Finally 
he  walked  down  a  path  of  silver-grey  sand, 
skirting  a  wood  of  oaks. 

It  waxed  very  warm  and  still;  there  were  no 
clouds;  the  air  shimmered  over  the  heather; 
white  and  little  brown  butterflies  skipped  over  it ; 
the  island  was  veiled  in  a  soft  white  haze  with 
violet  shadows  in  it.  Snakes  slid  out  into  the 
open  to  sun  themselves ;  the  air  was  full  of  slant- 
ing gleams  of  gossamer  and  little  drifting  lives  of 
insects  that  lived  a  day  and  never  knew  the  night. 

He  sat  among  the  pines  and  saw  the  brown 
lizards  and  the  squirrels  and  watched  the  golden 

lights  flit  over  the  dry  pine-needles;    the  boles 
116 


Forty -eight  Hours 

of  the  trees  shone  red,  and  in  among  the  far-off 
oaks  was  a  mist  of  pale  green. 

In  the  afternoon  he  walked  through  the  oak 
wood  over  dry  leaves  of  last  year,  and  cushions 
of  bright  emerald  moss,  set  with  scarlet,  purple, 
and  orange  fungi. 

At  sunset  he  stood  by  a  little  clearing;  it  was 
near  a  ranger's  cottage.  He  could  smell  wood- 
smoke  and  see  its  swaying  blue  column  rise  above 
the  thatched  roof  covered  with  stonecrop  and 
little  ferns.  Here  were  rows  of  hives  where  lived 
the  bees  whose  soft  organ-like  drone  he  had 
heard  mingling  with  the  'cellos  of  the  pines. 

The  sky  was  less  brilliant  than  it  had  been  the 
night  before;  it  was  bluish-white  and  the  long 
slender  clouds  on  the  horizon  were  violet  and  pink. 
The  sky  grew  paler  and  more  pale;  the  silver  of 
the  evening  star  glimmered  out,  a  tiny  point  of 
light.  The  pines  were  very  dark;  they  looked 
black  against  the  sky;  a  bat  flickered  over  them. 

He  walked  over  the  moor  to  the  shore ;  he  saw 
the  ghost-white  of  the  foam,  and  heard  the  rush 
and  draw  of  the  tide  on  the  smooth  pebbles. 
The  moon  was  up  when  he  walked  back. 

This  night  he  did  not  try  to  sleep ;  not  because 
he  was  worried  and  thoughtful;  he  had  not 
"7 


Forty-eight  Hours 

thought  all  day,  and  he  did  not  think  all  night. 
It  was  very  still  and  cloudless,  and  the  moon  was 
full;  when  it  set  the  sky  was  solemnest  blue; 
the  stars  and  the  white  fire  made  the  mystery  of 
space  more  wonderful.  It  was  one  of  those  nights 
which  are  living  symbols  of  largest  patience;  of 
breadth  that  includes  all  things,  of  silence  whose 
root  is  the  wisdom  that  knows;  of  that  mighty 
indifference  that  is  indifferent  because  of  its 
tenderness  rather  than  its  coldness.  A  night  sky 
that  was  a  symbol  of  a  Holy  Catholic  Church  of 
the  entire  universe;  not  tolerant — because,  after 
all,  tolerance  is  a  little,  narrow,  patronising  inven- 
tion of  man's  aggressive  superiority.  That  which 
is  all-inclusive  is  not  tolerant;  it  is  omnipotent, 
omniscient,  Alpha  and  Omega;  the  first  but 
also  the  last. 

He  did  not  think  of  these  things;  he  never 
mused  on  such  matters;  he  did  not  think  at  all 
that  night  nor  notice  anything  particularly.  He 
sat  under  the  sky,  his  hands  clasping  his  knees; 
he  was  not  sleepy,  because  to  be  out  of  doors  two 
days  and  nights  after  a  life  spent  chiefly  within 
walls  is  apt  quite  naturally  to  cause  wakefulness. 

He  saw  three  shooting  stars  slide  through  the 

blue  heart  of  the  night.    At  dawn  he  saw  a  fox, 
118 


Forty -eight  Hours 

a  vixen,  and  four  little  furry  creatures  with  sharp, 
bright  eyes;  they  played  together  and  rolled  in 
the  heather  without  fear  of  man.  He  began 
wandering  through  the  wood  looking  for  birds' 
nests;  he  found  four  before  the  sun  rose. 

When  it  rose  he  began  to  walk  back,  for  the 
forty-eight  hours'  holiday  from  the  world-compel- 
ling pamphlet  was  ended. 

He  reached  the  house  at  seven  o'clock;  had  a 
bath,  dressed  himself,  ate  a  moderate  breakfast, 
and  began  to  open  and  arrange  his  employer's 
letters.  That  was  at  8.30. 

At  nine  o'clock  his  employer's  guest  on  his  way 
to  breakfast  looked  into  the  library.  He  nodded, 
came  in,  and  shut  the  door. 

"  Good  morning,  Dexter,"  he  said.  "  You've 
got  back,  I  see.  I  suppose  I  know  your  answer?  " 

"  No,  I  believe  you  don't;  for  I  think  I'll  go 
on  here." 

"  You  don't  mean  that?  " 

"  I  do." 

"Afraid?" 

"  No." 

"  Moral  scruples?  " 

"  No." 

"What  then?" 

119 


Forty -eight  Hours 

The  other  hesitated,  because  he  really  did  not 
know  the  answer.  At  last  he  said : 

"  I  have  my  Sundays  free.  And  I  think  I  should 
miss  the  forest  if  I  went  away.  I  haven't  any 
other  reason — that  I  know  of." 


L'ENVOI 

Power  of  the  wave  and  the  light, 
Power  of  the  wind  and  the  dawn, 
Fanned  by  the  strength  of  thy  breath 
Man's  soul  is  born. 

Power  of  the  song  of  the  lark, 
Power  of  the  gold  of  the  corn, 
By  perfume  and  silence  and  speech 
Man's  soul  is  born. 

Power  of  the  whispering  rain, 
Power  of  the  day  when  it  dies, 
By  magic  of  sunset  and  dusk 
Man's  soul  doth  rise ! 

Power  of  the  stars  and  the  night, 
When  singing  and  sighing  shall  cease 
By  the  unknown  span  of  thy  rest 
Man's  soul  knows  peace ! 


THE  BREATH  UPON  THE  SLAIN 

Shall  these  bones  live  ?     God  knows. 

The  prophet  saw  such  clothed  with  flesh  and  skin. 

A  wind  blew  on  them,  and  Life  entered  in; 

They  shook  and  rose. 
Shorten  the  time,  O  Lord!     Blot  out  their  sin! 

Let  Life  begin! 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 

THE  wind  was  blowing  through  the  heather, 
singing  softly  from  the  distant  sea.  The  tiny 
tinkling  sound  of  the  purple  bells  was  like  faint 
music  of  faery. 

They  lay  on  an  ancient  barrow — three  men  on 
a  summer  holiday  by  the  southern  sea. 

One  was  a  thin,  nervous-looking  man,  who 
knew  much  of  the  purlieus  of  the  "  primrose 
path,"  wherein  he  strayed  to  gather  up  its 
wreckage  and  mend  it  if  he  might,  by  the  power 
of  a  God  in  whom  he  said  he  did  not  believe. 

The  second  was  an  ascetic,  devout,  and  hard- 
working priest  of  the  Anglican  Church. 

The  third  was  a  man  still  young,  but  looking 
even  younger  than  his  years.  Dennis  Barra  was 
his  name;  a  man  with  a  smooth,  boyish  face, 
strange  yellow-grey  eyes,  and  thick  hair  streaked 

121 


The  Breath  Upon  the  Slain 

a  little  with  grey;  it  gave  the  effect  of  dark 
hair  lightly  powdered,  and  added  to  the  lack  of 
modernity  about  the  face.  It  was  not  a  modern 
face ;  it  had  delicate  irregular  features,  and  a 
wide,  thin-lipped  mouth ;  the  face  looked  curiously 
luminous  in  the  strong  sunlight. 

The  first  man — Ralph  Ingram — was  speaking. 

"  No,  Cardew,"  he  said  to  the  priest,  "  I  tell 
you  if  I  did  not  hold  to  that  belief  I  should  go 
mad.  If  it  be  not  thus,  the  world  is  based  on 
injustice.  If  we  climb  a  ladder  rung  by  rung,  if 
we  work  out  the  result  of  our  deeds — that's  just. 
But  no  other  theory  is.  What!  a  man  murders 
and  wipes  out  all  his  past  by  '  grace  at  the  last,' 
'  forgiveness  of  sins '  and  '  faith '  which  his 
victim  never  had. 

"  You  speak  of  these  things  as  though  they 
were  outer  contracts  or  a  mental  attitude,"  said 
the  priest,  "  whereas  they  are  real  spiritual  forces, 
definite  powers  of  the  unseen.  I  do  not  see  that 
you  can  parcel  out  guilt  thus,  according  to  your 
system.  If  life  be  as  you  say  it  is,  the  fine  threads 
of  cause  and  effect,  of  will,  speech,  thought, 
impulse,  action,  are  endless.  It  appears  to  me 
that  by  pushing  '  causes '  so  far  back,  you  have 

complicated  everything  so  hopelessly  that  you 
122 


The  Breath  Upon  the  Slain 

need  some  universal  solvent  to  melt  the  bonds. 
If  you  accept  Adam  as  collective  man  rather 
than  as  an  individual  ancestor,  then  Man — collec- 
tive, heavenly  man — has  chosen  his  own  lot;  he 
has  chosen  his  fall.  His  true  life  is  elsewhere; 
in  some  mysterious  Eden  of  the  spirit  he  views 
all  our  inequalities  with  a  wider  view.  Our  mis- 
fortunes may  be  his  opportunity;  and  our  happi- 
ness his  slough  of  despond.  The  view  of  man 
spiritual  and  man  carnal  may  be  diametrically 
opposed.  His  justice  may  be  your  injustice." 

"Well !  I  should  as  soon  believe  in  the  sea-serpent 
as  in  the  doctrine  of  regeneration,  grace,and  faith." 

At  this  point  Dennis  Barra  laughed. 

"Are  you  laughing  at  Ingram  or  at  me?" 
said  the  priest. 

"  I  was  laughing  because  I  believe  I  once  saw 
a  sea-serpent  off  the  coast  of  Scotland,  and  I 
would  say  so  if  I  were  not  afraid  of  Ingram.  And 
I  was  also  laughing  because  I  thought  you  didn't 
see  that  your  views  fit  and  where  they  fit.  Ingram 
believes  in  the  law  which  governed  the  past  and 
governs  the  majority  in  the  present;  you  believe 
in  a  possibility  of  the  present — the  certain  law 
of  the  future." 

"  Why  do  you  say  that?  " 
1*3 


The  Breath  Upon  the  Slain 

"Well!  because  it  struck  me  it  was  true !  And 
regeneration  is  a  possibility,  regeneration  of  body 
and  soul ;  and  grace  is  a  fact,  and  the  swift  trans- 
mutation of  the  sinner  into  the  saint  I  believe 
to  be  possible." 

"Are  these  things  facts?  Idon't  believe  they  are." 

"  Will  you  believe  me  if  I  tell  you  a  story?  " 

"  If  you  vouch  for  it." 

"  I  do  vouch  for  it.  I  know  it's  true.  There 
was  a  man  once  who  had  just  come  out  of  prison. 
He  deserved  his  punishment.  His  friends  cut 
him — quite  justly;  and  he  did  not  greatly  care, 
save  that  he  was  angry.  He  had  some  means; 
he  was  not  in  want;  he  was  independent  both 
of  work  and  friends.  He  drank  a  little  when  he 
came  out  of  prison,  not  much.  He  would  drink 
for  a  day  or  two,  and  then  keep  sober  for  a  week. 
In  the  place  where  he  was,  a  mission  was  being 
held;  and  with  no  great  result." 

"  They  needed  you  there,  Barra!  " 

The  young  man  smiled. 

"  The  people  were  indifferent.  Something  was 
lacking.  The  mission  was  to  last  a  week.  The 
clergy  paraded  the  streets  each  night  with  a 
cross  and  the  choir  and  banners.  On  the  third 

night  the  man  of  whom  I  speak  joined  the  proces- 
124 


The  Breath  Upon  the  Slain 

sion  and  entered  the  church.  It  was  a  gloomy 
church;  the  singing  was  bad;  the  preacher  had 
little  power.  There  was  nothing  to  stir  the 
emotions.  It  was  dull;  the  man  was  just  sitting 
there,  bored.  He  was  thinking  he  would  go  out, 
when  something — Something,  I  say — Some  one 
— stood  beside  him.  He  saw  no  one,  but  some 
one  was  there;  and  that  some  one  laid  a  hand 
upon  his  head.  What  that  touch  did  to  him  he 
did  not  know;  he  never  knew.  It  revolutionised 
him  mentally,  morally,  yes,  and  bodily.  There 
came  to  that  man  a  bodily  change,  as  though  he 
was  fused  and  re-made  in  a  crucible  of  the  spirit, 
— a  cup  of  the  Holy  Graal.  The  only  words  which 
were  clear  to  him  were:  '  The  Fire  of  the  Sacred 
Heart,  the  Fire  of  the  Heart  of  the  Ascended.' 
They  were  not  spoken,  but  he  knew  they  were 
there.  And  he  knew  too,  that  he,  the  drunkard, 
the  criminal,  the  man  fresh  from  gaol,  must  speak 
to  the  people.  It  was  not  a  case  of  what  spiritual- 
ists call  '  control.'  No  ;  but  God  had  laid  a 
measure  of  His  power  in  the  trembling  hands  of 
that  sinner,  and  said  to  him :  '  Own  thy  sins  in 
humbleness,  and  then — not  thyself  but  Myself; 
give  Me  to  my  children !  ' 
"  He  stood  up  and  walked  to  the  pulpit  steps; 
125 


The  Breath  Upon  the  Slain 

the  preacher  was  just  coming  down  and  he  laid  his 
hand  on  his  arm  and  said :  '  Let  me  speak  to  them.' 

"  It  seems  little  less  than  a  miracle;  for  it  was 
a  church  of  the  Established  Church  in  England 
and  he  an  unknown  layman.  But  the  preacher 
let  him  stand  on  the  altar  steps  and  speak.  He 
told  them  very  quietly  and  briefly  who  he  was, 
and  what  was  his  character,  and  that  he  was  sorry ; 
and  then  he  spoke. 

"  He  had  not  spoken  for  three  minutes  before 
the  women  were  sobbing,  and  the  men  were  white 
as  ashes,  and  many  of  them  shaking  like  reeds  in 
a  wind.  There  was  a  great  '  revival,'  and  people 
laid  themselves,  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  at  the 
Feet  of  God." 

"  It  must  have  been  such  a  power  as  I  have 
known  you  wield  over  people,  Barra." 

"  It  was  the  Fire  of  the  Lord  that  had  struck 
one  man,  and  he  passed  it  on.  Of  course  some 
went  back ;  but  others  didn't,  and  their  lives  were 
changed.  But  what  I  want  to  make  you  see  is 
that  what  happened  to  that  man  could  happen 
to  all  men;  and  his  sins  and  his  past  were  made 
naught  when  God's  Hand  touched  him.  It  didn't 
matter  so  much  that  he  didn't  know  how  it  was 

done.    It  was  done.    That  is  a  living  Power  that 
126 


The  Breath  Upon  the  Slain 

could  work  in  the  world  at  any  minute  if  the  time 
was  ripe;  and  if  and  when  it  does  we  shall  have 
a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth." 

"  It  seems  to  me  hard  that  this  fellow's  sins 
and  past  were  blotted  out,  and  not  those  of  the 
other  poor  wretches.  Why  should  he  escape 
suffering  he  had  earned  by  the  touch  of  a  hand 
on  his  head?  You  say  he  deserved  what  he  got. 
I  daresay  he  deserved  much  more.  Most  likely  he 
was  a  scoundrel  who  deserved  the  cat." 

"  Very  likely  he  did.  He  never  thought  any- 
thing else.  He  always  admitted  his  sins.  But 
don't  mistake.  I  never  said  he  escaped  suffering. 
The  sins  of  the  other  poor  wretches  were  blotted 
out  in  him  for  the  time  being  only,  of  course. 
They  swept  into  him  like  a  tide  of  foulness  and 
anguish,  and  the  Fire  burned  them.  They  were 
its  fuel ;  so  that  it  swept  out  in  a  fuller  flood  and 
touched  the  people  with  its  power  and  cleansed 
them.  Escaped  suffering!  People  who  feel  the 
burden  of  their  own  sins  and  sorrows  to  be  too 
much  to  bear,  little  realise  what  it  means  to  feel 
other  people's  as  well.  Do  you  know  there  are 
simple,  unlearned,  unknown  women,  secluded 
from  the  world,  who  pray  the  temptations  of 

the  strong  (the  '  vibrations '  or  '  magnetisms/  to 
137 


The  Breath  Upon  the  Slain 

use  the  popular  shibboleth)  into  their  own  bodily 
frames,  and  then  endure  their  anguish  to  ease 
others'  burdens?  They  endure  them,  I  say;  they 
offer  them  to  be  transmuted  in  their  own  bodies 
and  souls  by  the  spiritual  force  they  call  the 
Blood  of  Christ;  and  that  Force  flows  out  from 
them  to  the  people  for  whom  they  pray.  That 
is  true,  possible,  a  fact.  Many  a  time,  maybe, 
have  those  very  people  laughed  at  their  inactive 
lives,  simple  faith,  superstitious  creeds,  and  all 
the  rest  of  it.  They'd  be  wallowing  deep  in  mud, 
many  of  those  strong  ones,  if  it  were  not  for  that 
very  superstitious  creed  that  prompts  the  women's 
prayers.  That  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  Cross  to 
these  women ;  that  is  the  vital,  poignant  meaning 
to  them  of  being  crucified  with  Christ." 

The  wind  muttered  in  the  heather,  and  the 
corncrake  called  from  a  distant  field.  The  speaker's 
voice  deepened  a  little;  but  it  was  quite  steady, 
there  was  in  it  neither  emotion  nor  excitement. 

The  priest  raised  himself  a  little  on  his  elbow 
and  looked  at  him  thoughtfully.  He  did  not  speak. 

"  Barra,"  said  Ralph  Ingram,  "  do  you  know 
this  story  of  your  inspired  criminal  to  be  true?  " 

"  I  know  it  to  be  true,"  said  Dennis  Barra, 

quietly,  "  I  know  it,  because  I  was  the  man!  " 
128 


THE   GLAMOUR-LAND 

He  follows  on  for  ever,  when  all  your  chase  is  done, 
He  follows  after  shadows,  the  King  of  Ireland's  son. 


IN  the  late  autumn  snow  had  fallen;  it  lay 
unmelted  on  the  highest  of  the  hills;  it  often  lay 
there  when  on  lower  ground  not  even  a  light  frost 
crisped  the  earth.  But  now  it  was  very  cold,  and 
the  trees  were  glittering  with  hoar-frost  and 
delicate  spikes  of  ice.  The  sea  ran  far  inland  and 
made  a  salt-water  lake,  almost  land-locked.  Blue 
was  the  key-colour  of  the  place.  The  sky  glowed 
blue  and  cloudless;  the  smooth  water  was  gentian 
blue  ;  seawards  there  was  a  huge  bar  of  sand  and 
shingle,  heaped  high,  and  running  almost  the 
whole  way  across  the  arm  of  the  inrushing  sea; 
therefore  whether  the  tide  was  high  or  low  the 
waves  broke  and  leaped  and  swirled  on  it,  so  that 
the  sea  looked  like  a  great  lake,  land-locked  on 
three  sides,  and  bounded  on  the  fourth  by  a 
tossing,  spouting,  milk-white  cataract  of  foam, 
as  the  great  breakers  raged  and  tumbled  over  the 
bar  of  sand.  There  were  no  vague  tones  nor 
shadowy  outlines  ;  the  blue  and  white  were  vivid, 
129  i 


The  Glamour- Land 

brilliant.  Blue  sea  —  blue  sky  —  blue  shadows 
on  the  white  hills;  white  snow,  white  frost  on 
leafless  boughs,  white  foam  aglitter  in  the  sun. 
Blue  —  blue  —  blue  —  and  unspeakably  blue  the 
shining  wells  of  the  sky,  into  which  one  might 
send  one's  thought  forth  in  quest  of  Truth,  and 
return  anon  bewildered  and  without  booty,  for 
the  whole  Truth  was  never  yet  gleaned  from 
without  nor  yet  from  another  man.  White  were 
the  sea-gulls  feeding  on  the  foreshore;  only  a 
little  seaweed-plastered  jetty  was  rich  brown 
and  amber  yellow;  crouched  at  the  foot  of  the 
jetty  sheltered  from  the  keen  wind  were  some 
children  who  added  a  touch  or  two  of  red  to  the 
picture,  for  one  of  the  girls  wore  a  crimson  coat 
and  one  of  the  boys  a  scarlet  woollen  cap. 

These  children  were  telling  stories,  and  it  was 
the  red-capped  boy's  turn.  He  was  not  a  very 
popular  teller  of  tales ;  yet  he  gripped  his  hearers 
because  he  wove  the  stories  of  the  things  which 
he  knew  in  his  heart,  and  not  of  the  things  he 
had  heard. 

Now  the  other  boys  told  of  pirates  and  brigands, 

whether  they  had  practical  experience  of  them  or 

not;   for  which  reason  one  only  of  their  number 

knew  what  he  was  talking  about;   he  afterwards 

130 


The  Glamour-Land 

became  a  great  writer,  for  he  drew  upon  the  bank 
of  knowledge,  though  how  he  came  by  the  know- 
ledge he  could  not  tell.  His  swashbucklers  and 
sea-wolves  breathed  the  breath  of  life;  and  people 
who  spent  their  time  in  wearily  wrestling  with 
office  work  and  household  accounts  found  them 
very  refreshing  company. 

Redcap  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  circle;  the 
frosty  wind  fluttered  his  flaxen  curls  beneath  his 
scarlet  headgear.  He  was  telling  tales  of  Glamour- 
Land,  the  customs  of  which  country  he  knew  well; 
the  group  listened.  The  boys  were  not  wholly 
absorbed;  the  girls  who  are  generally  quick  to 
hear  the  Songs  of  the  Glamour  were  the  more 
interested.  When  the  speaker  ended  his  tale  the 
girl  in  the  crimson  coat  drew  a  long  breath  and 
gave  her  verdict  "  Lovely."  The  tale-teller  did 
not  heed  her;  he  was  one  of  those  people  who 
care  nothing  for  the  breath  of  fame  and  praise. 
He  who  understood  pirates  so  well  nodded 
approvingly.  Throughout  his  life  this  boy  knew 
good  work  when  he  saw  it,  because  his  own  was 
so  good.  One  of  the  boys  offered  criticism. 

"  It's  all  beastly  rot,"  he  said  with  the  simple 
directness  of  boyhood.  "  There  isn't  any  such 
place." 

'3* 


The  Glamour-Land 

Redcap  crushed  him  with  swift  scorn. 

"  That's  all  you  know  about  it,"  he  said. 
"  That  place  I  tell  you  about  is  real,  and  this 
place  isn't;  this  place" — he  waved  his  arms 
patronisingly  at  the  sky  and  Sea — "  is  an  evil 
enchantment  of  the  Black  Witch;  one  of  these 
days  the  Wise  Queen  will  snuff  her  and  her 
enchantment  out — puff!  like  that!  " 

He  snapped  his  fingers;  the  listeners  looked 
uneasy  and  momentarily  doubted  the  stability 
of  the  earth. 

The  boy  who  had  criticised  repeated  his  former 
remark:  "  It's  all  rot."  Inwardly  he  hoped  the 
Wise  Queen  would  not  snuff  out  the  enchantment 
before  tea  time;  for  he  knew  there  were  hot 
cakes,  and  he  could  not  honestly  view  them  as 
evil  enchantments.  But  where  did  the  red-capped 
boy  get  his  ideas  about  the  relative  reality  of 
the  seen  and  unseen? 

Eight  years  after,  that  boy's  father  died;  his 
mother  married  again,  and  thereafter  great  trouble 
and  poverty  fell  upon  a  family  that  had  hitherto 
been  happy  and  prosperous.  This  boy,  then  a  lad 
of  eighteen,  given  to  great  dreams  and  visions 
of  the  Glamour-Land,  was  torn  away  from  all  he 

loved  and  hoped  for  and  dreamed  of;    he  was 
132 


The  Glamour-Land 

sent  to  work  at  dull  drudgery  for  a  weekly  pittance 
in  a  house  of  business  in  London.  There,  sick 
for  the  sights  and  sounds  of  Glamour-Land,  he 
nearly  broke  down  both  mentally  and  physically. 
He  was  poor,  friendless,  proud,  and  unsociable; 
but  that  was  nothing.  If  he  could  have  had  one 
daily  glimpse  of  the  Glamour  Country,  one  note 
of  its  songs,  he  could  have  borne  the  rest.  He 
fenced  himself  about  with  a  wall  of  practical 
cheeriness  and  hard-headed  common-sense  and 
lived  inside  it  in  a  hell  of  his  own.  In  a  narrow 
black  street  the  child  of  the  blue  land,  of  sea,  and 
wide  distances  lived  and  suffered  for  five  dreadful 
years ;  then  he  chanced  to  find  a  room  over  some 
offices  which  looked  upon  the  river,  and  suffered 
a  little  less.  He  began  to  earn  more  money;  he 
was  promoted.  He  did  his  work  very  well;  he 
was  to  be  depended  upon;  he  was  steady,  alert, 
and  "  on  the  spot,"  said  his  employers.  He  was 
thoroughly  practical.  Once  some  reference  was 
made  to  his  prospects  by  a  man  who  was  his 
superior  in  the  business  house  where  he  was 
employed.  This  man  told  him  he  was  bound  to 
get  on;  it  was  "  rare  to  see  a  young  fellow  so 
steady,  and  with  his  heart  in  his  business."  The 
young  man  (he  was  then  twenty-three)  laughed 
'33 


The  Glamour-Land 

a  little  laugh  that  was  as  chill  and  dreary  as  the 
wuther  of  the  north  wind  in  frozen  rushes  by  a 
bleak  ice-coated  mountain  tarn. 

"  When  you  don't  care  for  anything  you  have 
to  do,  one  thing  comes  as  easy  as  another,"  he 
said.  "  Besides  you  can  '  give  your  mind '  to 
heaps  of  things.  If  you  like  a  piece  of  work  it  is 
hard  to  pull  away  from  it  to  something  else;  but 
if  one  is  much  like  another  to  you,  and  all  equally 
dull,  then,  if  you've  a  decent  amount  of  self- 
control  you  can  do  them  all  fairly  effectively." 

While  his  superior  was  trying  to  understand 
his  extraordinary  sentiments,  he  said  "  Good- 
night, sir,"  and  went  out.  He  walked  back  to 
his  room. 

This  befell  just  before  he  found  the  room  over- 
looking the  river;  it  was  a  sultry,  ill-smelling 
summer  night ;  the  straight  line  of  the  houses  rose 
before  him  in  their  terrible  hideousness.  There 
was  a  little  church  in  the  street  in  which  they 
sang  anthems.  A  choir  practice  was  going  on. 
He  could  hear  the  voices  plainly : 

"  By  the  waters  of  Babylon  we  sat  down  and 
wept,  when  we  remembered  thee,  0  Zion.  If  I 
forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem,  let  my  right  hand  forget 
her  cunning." 


The  Glamour-Land 

The  man  hid  his  face  in  his  hands  and  sighed; 
his  heart  was  sick  with  great  longing  and  intoler- 
able weariness. 

"God!"  he  said.  "Let  me  go  mad  with 
memory  rather  than  forget." 

Yet  after  all  it  seemed  undesirable  to  go  mad, 
therefore  he  rose  and  went  to  a  little  cheap  club; 
the  members  were  many  of  them  "  thoughtful 
people"  with  "views";  most  of  their  views 
were  theoretically  partly  true,  and  practically 
partly  false  and  wholly  impossible  to  carry  out; 
it  was  not  always  possible  to  put  one's  finger  on 
the  flaw  in  them.  The  members  of  that  club  talked 
a  great  deal;  a  man  was  talking  very  earnestly 
when  he  who  desired  to  remember  entered  there. 
He  was  a  reformer,  and  willing  to  make  any 
personal  sacrifice  to  further  his  regenerative 
views.  He  said : 

"  A  wider  charity  is  what  men  need.  That  is 
the  root  of  the  matter." 

"  Nothing  has  been  so  fruitful  a  cause  of 
pauperisation,"  said  a  red-haired  man  who  was 
listening  for  the  sole  purpose  of  disagreeing  with 
him.  This  man  was  the  type  of  person  who  can 
never  extend  his  views  beyond  the  meaning 
which  he  has  decided  to  apply  to  a  word. 


The  Glamour-Land 

"  I  do  not  mean  Charity  in  that  sense.  I  mean 
rather  Love,  which  I  have  heard  is  Wisdom  in 
activity,  that  which  perceives  a  common  basis 
of  life.  This  is  Wisdom,  this  is  Love,  this  is 
Charity." 

"  Statistics  prove,"  began  the  man,  who  while 
the  other  spoke  had  been  thinking  of  his  own 
views  as  to  the  meaning  of  charity. 

"  Statistics  have  no  more  to  do  with  Charity 
than  they  have  with  Truth.  They  are  the  worst 
form  of  lying  extant.  Charity,  in  my  sense,  is  the 
deepest  of  all  wisdom.  Faith,  Hope,  Charity, 
these  three — and  the  greatest  of  these  is  Charity." 

Then  another  voice  uplifted  itself. 

"  I  think  St.  Paul  was  wrong  there,"  it  said. 
"  The  greatest  of  these  is  Faith." 

It  was  the  young  man  from  the  north. 

"  Faith!    What  do  you  mean  by  faith?  " 

"  The  sense  of  the  unseen,  and  the  trust  in  it," 
said  he  who  used  to  tell  the  stories  of  the  Glamour- 
Land.  "  The  man  who  never  loses  the  sense  of 
that  which  he  does  not  see,  can  move  the  world. 
All  the  force  side  of  nature  is  allied  with  him.  It 
is  the  unseen  that  is  the  motive  power  everywhere. 
The  man  who  in  an  east-end  slum,  a  city  office, 
a  factory,  a  gambling  hell,  a  music  hall,  or  in  the 
136 


The  Glamour-Land 

trivial  round  of  society  can  realise  that,  has  allied 
himself  with  the  sun  and  the  sea,  with  the  wind 
and  the  light,  with  the  Power  that  lies  behind  all 
and  causes  the  whole  to  be." 

Having  thus  spoken  he  wandered  out  as  he  had 
wandered  in. 

"  That's  a  queer  young  fellow,"  said  the  red- 
haired  man,  "  I  think  he's  cracked." 

"  No,"  said  one  of  the  listeners,  "  I  think  not. 
He's  a  practical  chap;  quiet,  solid,  steady-going 
fellow,  and  no  fool.  A  good  man  of  business  too. 
I've  never  seen  him  taken  like  that  before." 

He  spoke  as  though  he  was  the  victim  of  some 
malady.  If  this  was  the  case  it  did  not  assert 
itself  again.  The  man  worked  on  steadily  and  rose 
in  the  estimation  of  his  employers,  who  were  very 
sober,  business-like  people.  When  he  had  been 
nearly  twenty  years  in  London  he  met  the  boy 
who  told  the  pirate  stories  by  the  blue  sea.  The 
boy  was  now  a  man  and  he  told  his  stories  to 
a  wider  public;  he  was  married  to  the  girl  who 
wore  the  crimson  coat.  He  recognised  his  former 
brother  of  the  craft,  and  was  very  kind  and  glad 
to  see  him ;  he  asked  him  to  his  house  and  insisted 
on  his  coming  there.  He  saw,  what  no  one  in  his 
guest's  world  saw,  that  such  prosperity  as  was 
'37 


The  Glamour-Land 

his  was  not  the  full  measure  of  that  which  the 
promise  of  his  youth  once  seemed  to  deserve. 
He  asked  him  why  he  had  toiled  in  a  London 
office;  why  he  had  ceased  to  tell  the  tales  of 
Glamour-Land,  of  the  Wise  Queen,  and  the  Black 
Witch.  The  other  was  silent  awhile.  At  last  he 
said:  "  I  couldn't.  That  part  of  me  is  dead,  and 
buried  by  the  sea  up  yonder." 

His  host  said  no  more  at  the  time;  he  referred 
to  it  once  again,  very  carefully  and  tactfully. 

"  No,"  said  his  guest.  "  I  told  you  I  couldn't. 
First,  because  my  mind  is  like  a  hollow  pipe, 
for  other  people's  thoughts  to  blow  through. 
Secondly,  because  I  don't  properly  know  any  of 
the  things  I  used  to  know  when  I  was  young." 

He  talked  a  while  longer;  then  he  rose,  said 
good-bye,  and  never  returned  to  that  house  again. 
He  went  back  to  the  room  which  overlooked  the 
river;  for  fifteen  years  he  had  lived  therein.  He 
sat  by  the  window  and  muttered  to  himself: 

"They  that  wasted  us  required  of  us  mirth; 
saying :  Sing  us  one  of  the  songs  of  Zion." 

It  was  the  hour  between  light  and  darkness; 

the  river  was  clear  silvery  greyish  blue,  and  the 

light  struck  down  into  it  like  daggers  of  quivering 

pallid  fire;    the  bridge  showed  threadlike  arches 

138 


The  Glamour-Land 

of  vague  darkness  through  the  blue  mist;  little 
busy  tugs  sped  up  the  water-way,  dragging  long, 
thin,  black  barges ;  a  big  waggon  piled  high  with 
gleaming  yellow  straw  creaked  along  the  bank, 
coming  townwards  from  the  country.  There  was 
the  half-light  that  brings  out  a  thousand  shifting 
tints;  lights  began  to  dot  the  shore  and  the  boats 
lying  at  anchor. 

On  a  sudden  the  scent  of  wild  thyme  smote 
through  the  room;  there  was  a  hill  near  his  old 
home  that  was  carpeted  with  it  in  summer  time; 
and  behold  the  Glamour-Land  he  had  not  seen 
for  twenty  years  lay  below  him,  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  city.  It  was  perhaps  the  shadowy  silver- 
blue  that  opened  the  way ;  faint  vague  blue,  unlike 
the  gentian  glow  of  the  sea-lake,  yet  reminiscent 
of  it.  The  room  was  palpably  full  of  the  perfume 
of  wild  thyme.  The  man  rose.  For  ten  years  he 
had  hungered  for  the  beauty  of  his  old  home, 
and  there  had  been  no  money  to  take  him  there, 
nor  welcome  for  him  had  he  journeyed  thither. 
For  ten  years  the  money  had  been  there  and  a 
temperate  welcome  to  boot,  but  the  desire  lay, 
half-dead,  numbed  with  over-long  thwarting, 
weariness,  and  pain.  Now  he  suddenly  realised 
he  could  go  back  if  he  would.  The  next  day  he 


The  Glamour-Land 

asked  for  and  obtained  a  holiday  and  started 
northwards. 

It  was  evening  when  he  arrived;  he  went  to  a 
little  inn,  and  after  dinner  he  walked  to  the  jetty 
and  stood  upon  it  looking  at  the  water  leaping 
on  the  bar,  and  the  glowing  line  of  the  sun-bathed 
hills.  He  looked  and  he  looked  and  he  looked,  and 
behold !  there  was  nothing  there  which  he  desired. 
The  hunger  of  twenty  years  was  for  something 
which  this  beauty  recalled  to  him — nothing  more. 
The  Glamour-Land  was  not  here.  The  purple  of 
the  darkening  sea,  the  tossing  of  the  water, 
foaming  ghost-white  on  the  great  bar,  the  clear 
golden  light  of  the  hills,  woke  in  him  only  a  great 
hunger  for  that  of  which  they  made  him  think; 
for  which  they  caused  him  to  long;  and  of  what 
he  thought,  for  what  he  longed  he  did  not  know. 
It  eluded  him ;  it  fled  before  him  like  a  flickering 
elf-flame,  never  to  be  grasped  or  known. 

"  How  can  we  sing  the  Lord's  Song  in  a  strange 
land?  " 

He  said  the  words  aloud;  as  a  stranger  in  that 
country  in  which  he  had  been  born  and  reared. 
The  next  day  he  went  back  to  London  to  the  room 
that  overlooked  the  river.  He  sat  alone ;  he  was 

alone  in  the  house;  the  offices  below  were  closed; 
140 


The  Glamour-Land 

the  place  was  quiet ;  the  roar  of  London  sounded 
distant,  it  was  like  the  far-off  breaking  of  the 
waves  on  the  bar;  the  river  water  was  lapping 
against  the  walls  that  pent  it  in.  As  he  walked 
homewards  he  had  crossed  the  bridge,  and 
stopped  to  buy  watercress  of  an  old  man.  This 
old  man  was  one  who,  through  the  ignorance  which 
is  the  heritage  of  every  man,  had,  in  an  hour  of 
that  madness  which  we  call  sin,  become  outcast 
from  the  rank  wherein  he  was  born ;  now,  ill,  old, 
and  very  poor,  he  sold  watercress,  groundsel,  and 
pencils  on  the  bridge  by  day  and  slept  in  a  com- 
mon lodging-house  by  night.  This  man  was  the 
one  soul  on  earth  to  whom  he  who  once  told  the 
tales  of  Glamour-Land  ever  spoke  of  the  longing 
that  consumed  him.  This  old  man  also  had  a 
hopeless  longing  of  his  own;  he  desired  one  hour 
back  of  the  seventy  years  that  lay  behind  him; 
one  hour  to  fashion  as  he  chose,  one  hour  which 
had  darkened  and  made  a  hell  of  forty  years. 
The  man  from  the  north  stopped  and  bought  cress 
of  him.  As  he  took  the  cress  he  spoke.  "  I  used 
to  think  I  longed  for  my  old  home,"  he  said. 
"  I  went  back  there  yesterday  after  twenty 
years." 

"  What  did  you  find?  " 
141 


The  Glamour-Land 

"  The  country  I  seek  is  not  there,"  answered 
the  other;  his  voice  sounded  tired,  as  though  with 
much  journeying  of  soul  and  body. 

"  Ah!  you'd  better  not  have  gone.  It  is  better 
to  believe  there  is  something  which  would  make 
you  content  if  you  had  it." 

"  I'd  rather  know  the  truth." 

"  You  are  young  still,"  said  the  pencil-seller. 
"  If  I  believed  I  were  young  and  strong,  loved 
and  honoured,  I  should  believe  a  lie.  But  I  should 
prefer  to  believe  it." 

"It  is  probably  just  as  true  as  your  present 
beliefs  about  yourself,  whatever  they  may  be. 
Don't  you  think  so?  " 

He  walked  on.  Now  the  cress  lay  on  the  table 
and  withered;  he  sat  by  the  window  and  listened 
to  the  lapping  of  the  tide.  For  twenty  years  he 
believed  he  knew  what  he  desired,  if  he  had  been 
free  to  seek  it;  now  he  knew  otherwise.  He  did 
not  know  where  Glamour-Land  was,  and  yet — 
"  If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem,"  he  murmured, 
"  may  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning." 

Into  the  silence  of  his  soul  there  broke  many 
voices  speaking  as  one  voice  and  they  spoke  after 
this  manner: 

"  When  we  who  guard  the  Songs  of  the  Glamour 
142 


The  Glamour-Land 

will  that  they  shall  be  sung,  they  are  sung.  They 
ring  through  the  world,  though  none  know  whence 
they  sound,  nor  the  manner  of  their  sounding. 
Some  say  they  come  from  here,  and  some  from 
there.  And  it  is  nothing  to  us  whether  our  singers 
be  kings  or  slaves,  saints  or  sinners,  fools  or  sages, 
men  or  women,  for  it  is  we  who  sing  through 
their  lips,  and  it  is  the  world  that  hears  when  the 
time  is  ripe.  We  have  before  this  day  caused  those 
who  were  blind,  and  dumb,  and  deaf  to  sing  the 
songs  of  the  Glamour,  and  some  of  these  never 
knew  they  sang.  Moreover,  you  have  sung  them 
here  in  the  city's  heart  for  twenty  years  and  more, 
while  you  thought  your  lips  were  mute  and  your 
heart  hungry  with  desire  of  Glamour-Land.  And 
because  you  had  nothing  for  which  you  longed, 
you  learned  to  look  for  nothing  your  hands  could 
grasp,  but  to  hold  all  things  readily  and  loose 
them  easily  at -the  appointed  hour.  Wherefore 
we,  who  know  how  it  is  with  a  man's  soul,  drew 
from  you  the  common  desires  of  men  as  pith  is 
drawn  by  a  shepherd  boy  from  a  reed  when  he 
would  pipe  therewith;  thereafter  we  fashioned 
these  your  body  and  soul  into  a  pipe  whereon 
we  might  pipe  the  Songs  of  the  Glamour,  and 
the  world  has  heard  them.  You  felt  their  notes 


The  Glamour-Land 

ring  through  your  soul,  while  your  ears  were  deaf, 
strain  them  as  you  would." 

"  And  I?  "he  asked,  "  am  I  nothing?  " 
"  Nothing,"  they  made  answer,  "  nothing — or 
all  that  is." 

Whereat  he  fell  to  musing  on  their  words,  until 
the  lapping  water,  the  roaring  city,  and  the 
beating  of  the  heart  within  his  body,  seemed 
alike  to  be  but  the  pulsing  of  a  life  that  swept 
outward  from  the  Unknown  God  of  the  Worlds. 


A    000029440     5      __ 


